Page 7 - Art of the Ming and Qing Dynasty by Johnathan Hay

also found in ceramics and lacquer, corresponds to the straightened circumstances of the mid-

fifteenth century, when orders to the Jingdezhen kilns were also sharply cut back.
PAINTING AT COURT. It is perhaps a reflection of Zhu Di's ideological concerns
that he encouraged scholar-official artists at his court. The presence of such artists as the
painter Wang Fu (1362-1416) and the calligrapher Shen Du (1357-1434) gave a Confucian
air of propriety to a reign founded on the act of regicide. Wang Fu was appointed to the court

in 1403 on the basis of his ability as a calligrapher, and served until his death. He
accompanied the Emperor on two of the several inspection trips he made to Beijing to study
the site of the new capital. In connection with these trips he painted a handscroll of Eight

Views of Yanjing (Beijing) in 1414, which served as the catalyst for numerous contemporary
colophons by other officials in praise of the new capital site. Abstracted from present time
and the urban realities of reconstruction, these views evoke the combined traditions of poetry
and painting to confer legitimacy upon the site without making reference to its prior
connection with the Yuan dynasty. They also speak to the relationship between intellectuals

and the state. The poetic title of the final leaf, Sunset at Golden Tower, identifies the scene as
the site, during the Warring States period, of a palace built by King Zhao of Yan for his
teacher (478-79). Its golden tower symbolized the welcome that the court offered to men of

talent. In giving visual expression to this hope for the new Ming court in Beijing, Wang's
pictorial language is that of the Yuan literati. But the forceful brushwork, the cropped close-
up view, and the dramatic play of light announce the less metaphysical concerns of later
fifteenth century painters. The elegant seal-script of the title, meanwhile, has much in
common with that of Shen Du, whose calligraphy graced antiques and decorative objects in

the palace, and probably provided the model for the rare reign marks found on Yongle
porcelain.
In contrast to Wang Fu's scholarly art, the overwhelming majority of paintings at the

Yongle and Xuande courts revived the tradition of Song painting: realist, decorative, and just
as concerned with figures as with landscape. Although it had gone out of fashion in the
fourteenth century, the Song tradition had survived widely into this period both at the former
Southern Song capital of Hangzhou, and in such culturally conservative regions as
Guangdong and Fujian, and Shanxi. It was above all painters from these areas who now

entered the palace to serve the court's vast needs for paintings of all kinds: wall paintings,
decorative hanging scrolls, and intimate handscrolls and albums for the Emperor and his
favorites. Yet despite the large number of painters employed at court, sometimes over many

years, there was no academy as such. Instead, painters were appointed to official positions of
diverse kinds. By the Xuande period, most of them nominally served in the Embroidered-
uniform guard, and were attached to various palaces.