Page 471 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

Looking, through tears, at the broken ink and 317
remnants of his work;
Emerald peaks, rank on rank, melt into the Wen Zhengming
sad clouds. 1470-1559
Shen [Zhou] was a man of the highest integrity. SPRING TREES AFTER RAIN
His writings were perceptive and rich, and his
scholarship deeply grounded. Emerging during dated to 1507
odd moments of spare time, his paintings Chinese
afforded an amusing diversion. They are not, hanging scroll; ink and color on paper
x
1
1
indeed, something which indifferent artisans 94-3 33-3 (37 /8Xi} / 8)
or commonplace craftsmen can realize. In his inscription by the artist
early years he followed Wang Meng [1309- National Palace Museum, Taipei
1385] and Huang [Gongwang, 1269-1354] and
proceeded on into the chambers of [Dong Yuan, The theme of this painting as well as the circum-
d. 962] and [Ju-Ran, act. c. 960-980], his crea- stances under which it was created are stated in
tions becoming ever more profound. There is the artist's inscription:
no knowing what its genesis might be.
After rain spring trees produce green shade,
These six leaves were done for Wu [Kuan,
1436-1504]. In brushwork and compositional I love best that on West Mountain toward the
last light
of day;
placement especially do they surpass his usual.
Venerable old [Pao, i.e., Wu Kuan] bade me There must be people's houses at the
mountain's foot,
fill in the extra leaves. I declined with thanks,
pleading inadequacy. However, I could not Across the river one sees from afar where the
brush aside his request. With four [Tang] cou- white mists are born.
plets casually in mind, I smeared and scribbled I painted this picture for Laishi, who after
in a desultory way. But how could such clumsy several days requested me to add a poem. Laishi
and inferior skills as mine bear being attached is about to leave for the north. When he looks
to a renowned brush? The disciple was sin- at this on the boat, will he wonder if Tianping
cerely embarrassed. and Lingyan still exist?
By now it has been several years since the ven- The artist's poem specifies a season and a time
erable old [Pao] passed on, and the venerable of day and hints at atmospheric conditions; these
old [Shi], too, is dead. His [Wu's] nephew [Siye, particulars, combined with the names of three
i.e., Wu Yi] brought the album to show me. specific famous scenic areas in Jiangsu Province,
I cannot help sighing over the fact that the might well create expectations of a painting
[qin, a kind of zither] remains but the man is almost exactly opposite to what the painter has
gone. And so, I have composed four poems given us. Rather than the immediacy of a particu-
and inscribed these remarks. lar place on a somewhat humid evening in spring,
we view a scene in which the formalized, warm-
Written by the pupil Wen [Zhengming] in the
[Yuqing shanfang] during the eighth lunar cool color combination, the general lack of spatial
month in the autumn of the [bingzi] year of the or atmospheric recession, and the meticulous,
[Zhengde] era [1516]. very dry, and refined drawing all tend to evoke a
mood of nostalgia, a sense of a world far removed
(Translations from Cleveland 1980,185-187.) in time and place from the present.
Much of this approach harks back to Zhao
NOTES:
Mi Youren (1075—1151), a famous painter, was the son Mengfu (1254-1322), who was one of the earliest
of Mi Fu (1051-1107), an even more eminent painter, artists in China to self-consciously distort natural
forms and relationships for purely expressive
calligrapher, and scholar, and one of the accepted cre- purposes. The sense of disengagement which official like his father but failed time after time to
ators of wen ren painting and aesthetics. characterizes the present painting is particularly pass the district examination. In 1522, following
tn
Wang Wei (699-759), e traditional patriarch of the Wen's tenth failure, the governor of Jiangsu Prov-
wen ren tradition, was famous as poet and as the first appropriate to the purpose, for Spring Trees After ince recommended him for appointment at court;
for a man
Rain was painted as a gift
who was
artist to paint a particular landscape, his country villa after serving unhappily until 1527, he resigned
Wangchuan. leaving the lush river and lake country of the and returned home to pursue aesthetic rather
Shen Yue (441-513) was a scholar whose name was Yangzi River region for the drier, more austere than political goals. Wen's unflagging productiv-
used by Wen as a complimentary reference to Shen north. The artist suggests in his inscription that ity during his long life and his numerous disciples
Zhou. Yuzisha was Shen Zhou's villa. as the physical environment changed, his painted, and students were instrumental in the spread
dreamlike vision might
well come to seem more
Xie Lansheng's colophon of 1824 describes the scroll and acceptance of the Suzhou style of painting
as it is now: "Originally it had six leaves, with four substantial than his friend's memory of the south- throughout the entire country by the end of
ern
scenery.
other leaves added by Wen Hengshan [Wen Zheng- Wen Zhengming, mentioned above as the most the sixteenth century. From then onward the
ming], based on couplets from Tang dynasty poems. important pupil of Shen Zhou, was also a boyhood restraint, the refinement, and the discipline
In the album now there are only five of Shen's and friend of Tang Yin and a close artistic associate of already apparent in this early work of 1507
one of Wen's left." S.E.L. Qiu Ying. Wen originally aimed to be a scholar- became hallmarks of literati painting. H.R.
470 CIRCA 1492