Page 358 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

fig. 2. Huang Gongwang (1269-1354). Dwelling in
the Fuchun Mountains. Dated to 1347-1350.
Chinese. Section of the handscroll; ink on paper.
Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei.

government service —and he took the trouble to Wu Zhen, into a new and original style. His phrase of the last sentence is partially correct.
build a studio on the edge of Suzhou, referred earliest works were either modest essays in local Wu's characteristic style was a combination of
to as a hsing wo (travel nest?), probably to pro- landscape (Living in Retirement, 1464, Osaka vertical and horizontal "single strokes" with
vide a pied-a-terre from which to sell paintings. Municipal Museum), or complex and difficult pale washes of ink, producing a deceptively
In later life, after 1480, he sold many of the "homages" to Yuan masters, such as Lofty simple and plain (bland, ping dan) landscape
important works in his collection, including the Mount Lu of 1467 (cat. 311). The latter paint- that was highly approved among the wen ren.
famous Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains and ing, which Shen dedicated to his tutor Chen Shen took the single-stroke idea and the broad
a tenth-century landscape by the great early Kuan, was a major work, a "variation on a use of wash and joined it to his forceful, even
master Guo Zhongshu. This suggests that he theme" of Wang Meng, friend of Shen's great- dramatic energy. In this (the author believes)
likely sold his own works as well; after all, great-grandfather and one of the Four Great Shen Zhou was recalling something of the
during Shen's lifetime "professionalism" was Masters of Yuan. The mountain was famous, drama to be found in Zhe school and "Hetero-
not the term of opprobrium that it became for revered, associated with celebrated figures from dox" pictures, something really different from
later generations of literati. Zhou Chen, the the past, and a fitting metaphor for the lofty such wen ren ideals as "blandness" or the cloak-
fine professional master and teacher of Tang Yin character of the artist's tutor. Evidently, then, ing of skill. The album-scroll of Five Land-
and Qiu Ying, was almost surely one of Shen's the painting was seriously undertaken, a major scapes (cat. 315) and the handscroll of The Three
Suzhou circle. Furthermore, by refusing gov- effort, perhaps even a "master-piece," a demon- Junipers (cat. 312) are hardly to be explained in
ernment office his whole life long (citing as an stration of his maturity in relation to the artistic traditional wen ren terms. The Three Junipers
unimpeachable Confucian excuse his long- tradition. The writhing forms and hairy tex- has other claims to fame, for it is a major inno-
widowed mother's need of him), Shen also tures are Wang's, but the bold drama of the vation in the treatment of a traditional Chinese
relinquished the income that came with govern- dancing pines in the foreground, the arbitrary "landscape" theme, one especially associated
ment service. And money was needed, if only lightening of the central rising plateau, almost with the great monumental landscape artists of
to pay the taxes on his and his mother's estates. ghostly in effect, and the metamorphic distant the tenth and eleventh centuries and treated
Shen's mature style influenced several minor peaks above are all new, and express the* power- sporadically during the Yuan dynasty, once (to
masters of the next generation: Xie Shichen ful individuality of Shen Zhou. fine effect) by Wu Zhen. For the cutoff, near
(1487-^ 1561), Qian Gu (1508-1578), Wang In addition to Shen's study of Huang Gong- view that Shen Zhou gives us of segments of
Chong (1494-1533), Chen Shun (1483-1544), wang, and his mastery — apparent in this paint- the grand old trees, Cahill's description and
and Sun Ai, who in 1490 painted Shen's por- ing—of the style of Wang Meng, in other works comment cannot be improved:
trait. But his only direct pupil of consequence of this same period he at least dealt with the Metamorphic and metaphorical effects are
was the well-to-do son of his friend Wen Lin spare and austere elegance of Ni Zan (1301- present in Shen Chou's painting, but they
(1445-1499), Wen Zhengming. Wen's begin- 1374). Clearly, Shen looked to the Yuan masters depend on real aspects of the trees and are
nings as an epigone of Shen Zhou can be seen in for his antecedents, and among the Yuan mas-
imagination.
Wen's early (pre-i5O4) addition to Shen's album ters the most significant influence in the forma- not mere products of the artist's presentation
The grandeur of Shen
[Zhou's]
(now mounted as a handscroll; cat. 316), and in tion of Shen's mature and consistent way proved admits nothing of the fanciful; with brush
the upper part of his own Spring Trees After to be Wu Zhen (1280-1354). The sixteenth- drawing of a rugged integrity that is worthy
Rain of 1507 (cat. 317). In his maturity he century painter-critic Li Rihua (1565-1635) of its subject, he describes movingly the
became recognized as the second great master of wrote of Shen Zhou: "In his middle age he outcome of a millennium of slow growth,
the Wu school, enormously influencing the chose Huang Gongwang as his master, but in of survival through a thousand winters.
development of wen ren ideals; his own mature later years he was completely carried away by (Cahill, 1978, 95.)
style, expressive if constricted, set the pattern Mei Daoren (Wu Zhen). He became quite intox-
along which his family continued the Wu icated by Wu Zhen's art and blended so closely Wen Zhengming also painted old trees, espe-
tradition. with it that some of his works could not be dis- cially in his later years, and they owe much to
The achievement of Shen Zhou was to form, tinguished from Wu Zhen's if they were mixed Shen's innovation, but the balance between
or rather to transform, the idioms of his favorite up" (Wei Shui Xuan Ri }i, c. 1619). Although innovation and tradition, personal expression
Yuan masters, first Huang Gongwang and later the last phrase is simply a cliche, the first and respect for nature, brushwork and delinea-

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