Page 461 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

works before the age of forty were all small in
scale, those after forty much larger; the present
painting may well have been the original basis for
that statement, for it was done when the artist
was just forty and moreover is modeled on the
style of Wang Meng, mentioned by Wen as his
teacher's favorite source of inspiration during
those middle years.
The artist's long inscription begins with the
title, Lu Shan gao, 'The loftiness of Mt. Lu," and
then continues to describe the height, vast extent,
and scenic beauties of that famous mountain
located near Lake Poyang in Jiangxi Province. The
mountain is then associated with the family of a
scholar named Chen Kuan — a family which had
lived at the foot of the peak for generations before
moving to the Suzhou region. The artist then
continues:
I once traveled to the master's gate. After
seeing the full extent of his loftiness, that of
Mt. Lu was put to shame. Having retired to a
hilltop garden at the age of seventy, he works
hard at literary composition, his white hair
tangled like autumn brambles This poem
and painting were done by your disciple Shen
Zhou of Changzhou, who respectfully submits
them in hope of a long life for the venerable
and virtuous Master Xing'an [Chen Kuan].
The painting was thus done to celebrate a major
milestone in the life of the artist's literary teacher,
Chen Kuan (1398-1467 or later), and both subject
and style were chosen particularly for the occa-
sion. As the ancestral home of Chen's family, Mt.
Lu could function easily as metaphor both for the
family and for the particular eminence of Chen
himself. The artist's father and uncle had both
studied with Chen Kuan's father, Chen Ji (1370-
1434), and he in turn was the son of Chen Ruyan
(c. 1331-c. 1371), himself a landscape painter of
some note and a friend of Wang Meng, whose
style so influenced the present painting.
Shen Zhou's family estate in Suzhou was
founded during the early years of the Ming
dynasty by his great-great-grandfather Shen
Liangchen (mid-late 14th century), a collector
and connoisseur of art who was also a friend of
Wang Meng. Shen Zhou continued what had
become a family tradition by declining to seek
office and rather concentrating on scholarship,
poetry, and collecting. He also became an excel-
lent calligrapher, but it was as a painter that he
achieved the ultimate accolade of history: recog-
nition as the founder of a major school of paint-
ing, called the Wu school after the old name for
the Suzhou region. Along with Tang Yin, Qiu
Ying, and Wen Zhengming, Shen was also later
celebrated as one of the Four Great Masters of
Ming. Wang Shizhen (1526-1590), an important
critic of the late Ming, rated Shen as "the best
of our dynasty"; to Wen Zhengming, Shen's
most illustrious pupil, Shen was "an immortal
among men." H.R.

460 CIRCA 1492