Page 436 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

seventeenth century, offered a perceptive appre-
ciation of Dai's accomplishment: "... his pictures
of gods were most dignified and the devils were
fierce. He mastered completely the coloring of the
garments and the drawing of their folds (with
light and dark tones) and was not inferior to the
great masters of the [Tang] and [Song] periods."
(Translation from Tuhui Baojian, xuzuan, in Siren
1958, 131.)
One should note that the red-haired demon
bringing up the rear carries Zhong's sword and
zither (qiri), attributes of the scholar-official, and
that the tattered parasol and lightweight bamboo
chair-litter seem more appropriate for south
China than for this wintry environment. Still, the
lone sprig of blossom in the demon-scholar's cap
suggests the approach of spring.
Dai Jin, from Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province,
is traditionally acknowledged as the founder and
first master of what came to be known as the Zhe
school of painting (after the first syllable of his
native province, Zhejiang). He was considered a
great master in his own time, and legends and
anecdotes gathered about his name. His excellence
at figure painting and realistic depiction found
(apocryphal) expression in the tale of his locating
a larcenous porter by circulating the local wine
shops with a sketch of the man. Dai may have
worked on the Bao'en Si, a major Buddhist temple
begun under imperial auspices in 1407 at Nanjing,
then the Ming capital. By 1421 the capital had
been moved to Beijing, and Dai followed in hopes
of appointment as a court painter. Though recom-
mended by a high court official, Dai Jin fell afoul
of the intrigues and jealousies of the Xuande
emperor's court and its leading painters and fled
Beijing for Hangzhou, re-embarking on a career
of Daoist and Buddhist figure painting. The ani-
mosity of the imperial art advisor, Xie Huan,
remained unappeased, however, and forced Dai to
flee to Yunnan Province in the far southwest, to
the entourage of Mu Sheng (1368-1439), a noble-
man well known as a connoisseur and collector.
Ultimately he returned to Beijing, probably after
1440 (when the Xuande emperor was dead), and
finally achieved the measure of success his out-
standing talent and accomplishments deserved.
Among his prominent supporters in the capital
was Wang Ao (1384-1467), a famous official and
calligrapher.
Dai Jin's excellence was fully understood by his
only rival of the time in fame, Shen Zhou, the
leading master of literati painting (wen ren hud)
and founder of the Wu school, centered in
Suzhou. Contemporaneous and near-contem-
poraneous records and critical literature were
suggests its use in a large chamber or hall, perhaps ogous achievements in fourteenth- and fifteenth- highly respectful of Dai Jin's art; only in late
even in a noble, princely, or imperial setting, as a century European painting. Unfortunately, aside Ming and in Qing, after Chinese art had become
decoration on Twelfth Moon day. In the strength from such rare essays as this one by Dai Jin, this polarized between the "professionals" and the
and especially the solidity of the figures this work way of painting was abandoned by the leading wen ren, with the wen ren seizing the moral and
recalls the early fourteenth-century master Yan masters of the Ming dynasty, thus cutting off aesthetic high ground, did the Zhe school in gen-
Hui, who pursued a relatively "realistic" light- certain possibilities for variety and complexity in eral and Dai Jin in particular begin to lose their
and-shade modeling technique which rivals anal- later Chinese painting. Mao Dalun, writing in the luster in received opinion. S.E.L.
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