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- fessional painters who lived for and by their paintings and who were obliged to produce paintings in accordance with the whims of the court. In contrast to the Zhe school were the scholar-gentlemen painters of the Wu school, who were anti-establishment and created paint�ings only for their own intellectual amusement. They constructed an ideal art world of their own and carried on the romantic literati tradition of the Yuan masters.
In general, the Zhe school, which included such painters as Bian Wenjin, Dai Jin, Xie Shichen, Wu Wei and Lan Ying [3], was formal in appearance, rich in content, ambitious in composition and took much time for their com�pletion. Every dot and line was expected to be perfect. While, the Wu school, which included such painters as Shen Zhou [4], Wen Zheng- ming, Wen Boren [5] and Lu Zhi [6], was more simplified and free, and closer to the escapist spirit of Chan (Zen) Buddhism. They empha�sized the expression of poetic taste rather than the show of technical competency.
There were other painters of the Ming dynasty, who cannot be classified as belonging either to the Zhe or to the Wu school. In between these two principal schools were three outstanding painters: Zhou Chen, Tang Yin [7] and Qiu Ying [8].
By the late Ming period the identities of both the Zhe and Wu schools had become obscured by painters searching among the ancient masters for inspiration. This made it difficult to classify them into a particular school.
In the sixteenth century a renowned painter, Dong Qichang (i555-l636)> attempted to reclassify all artists into the Northern and South�ern schools. In general, he praised the literati traditions and criticized the academicians. The famous Mustard Seed Garden Painting Manual of 1679 described and illustrated much of his vocabulary of techniques.
Paintings under the succeeding Manchu Qing dynasty (1644-1911) continued along the lines laid down by Dong Qichang. However, the painting tradition split into several divergent trends. In the early part of the Qing period, there is a great richness in the range and quality of painting styles but a rough distinction may be made between orthodox and individualist style.
The orthodox literati tradition, showing esteem for the great Yuan masters and Dong Qichang, was developed by the Six Great Masters of the Early Qing: Wang Shimin, Wang Yuan-
qi, Wang Hui, Wang Jian, Yun Shouping and Wu Li [ 11 ]. Soft formations of mountains and round patches of vegetation are characteristic of their paintings.
(The individualists are much less easy to cate�gorize. Some of the greatest of the individualist painters are divided into different groups such as: the Eight Masters of Nanjing, the Masters of Xinan, the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou, and the Monk-Painters. Paintings by these people can often be interpreted as being their own private protest against the Court paintings of that time.
The Eight Masters of Nanjing include Fan Qi, Xie Sun, Hu Zao, Gao Cen, Wu Hong, Ye Xin, Zou Zhe and Gong Xian [12]. Although they were a closely knit group active in the Nanjing area, all their styles varied. The greatest of the group was Gong Xian. He was an eccen�tric who loved to paint somber and tragic scenes of desolation and loneliness.
Among the Masters of Xinan were Hong Ren, Sun Yi, Wang Zhirui and Cha Shibiao [13]. Again this group was based on a common place of origin rather than stylistic similarities. How�ever, they did tend to have preferences for simi�lar tree types, moss dotting and a particular geometric architectural arrangement in their pictures.
Another group of individualists were the so- called Monk-Painters which includes Kun Can [14], Zhu Da [15], and Dao Ji [16]. They lived in retirement and took refuge in Buddhist monasteries because the fall of the Chinese Ming dynasty to the Manchu Qing dynasty had profoundly depressed them. All three were important landmarks in the history of Chinese painting and succeeded in significantly changing the direction of painting in China.
The Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou were made up of the following people: Zheng Xie, Huang Shen / 181, Li Fangying [19], Luo Ping [20], Wang Shishen [21], Li Shan [22], Jin Nong [23] and Hua Yan [24]. With the exception of Zheng Xie, the catalogue includes works by each of the artists. The most prominent among them was Jin Nong; the most versatile and technically accomplished was Hua Yan; and perhaps the most popular was Luo Ping. The Eight Eccentrics share some common charac�teristics, but each was typified by his own specialty; for example, bamboo, plum, flowers and birds, or animal paintings. They were against
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