VII. Ming Dynasty

       There were so many artists in the Ming Dynasty that the number exceeded the Song and Yuan Dynasty combined, and through out the Ming Dynasty the transformation of painting techniques undulated and went unconstrained. In the early period, The Zhejiang School, who advocated Song painting, was the mainstream, with adepts spread all over both the imperial court and the common society. In the mid period, Wu School, who carried on the literati painting traditions, sprung up in Suzhou. In the late period, there were the Flower-and-Bird Painting School, who stressed on independently expressing one’s nature and soul, and exploited a new realm in freehand style; the Portrait School, who’s paintings either were precisely lifelike, or anamorphic figure paintings that took ugly as beauty; and the Huating Landscape School, who strove for brush and ink, and vigorously advocated literati painting.

       The outstanding representatives of the Zhejiang School were Dai Jin and Wu Wei. The former imitated Ma Yuan and Xia Gui from the Southern Song Dynasty, and also studied from the Northern Song and Yuan Dynasty artists. His landscape paintings, compared with those of the two Song Dynasties, had richer arrangement of landscapes; and compared with those of the Yuan Dynasty, had more feelings of realistic life.

His composition was proper and elaborate, his scene was extensive and full-bodied, his molding was vivid and solid, and his brush strokes were bold and vigorous while rigorous in law. Wu Wei, though “originated from Dai Jin”, his technique of brush was freer, his verve was broader, and his composition and molding were more simple and integrated. Dai Jin’s masterpiece was <Emerald Accumulated in the Spring Mountains>, while Wu Wei’s <Ten Thousand Li of the Yangtze> was the most famous.

       The Wu School was founded by Shen Zhou and accomplished by Wen Zhengming. The members were mostly famous figures who were expert in all of the three - poetry, calligraphy, and painting.

The most known were the so called “Four Masters in Wu School”, who were Shen Zhou, Wen Zhengming, Tang Yin, and Qiu Ying. Shen Zhou and Wen Zhengming took landscape painting as their main creation. Either in light and elegant blue-and-green, or in steady and gentle ink and wash, their paintings mostly depicts sceneries south of the Yangtze or literati’s gardens. Their technique followed the Yuan, Song, and Five Dynasties’ artists. Tang Yin and Qiu Ying were more into figure painting. Tang Yin was erudite, versatile, and more experienced, so he touched a wide range of subjects, both ancient and contemporary, and not limited. While Qiu Ying stuck with traditional subjects, whose skill of imitating ancient works was superb, and was especially adept at meticulous-in-rich-color figure painting and blue-and-green landscape. His style was rigorous and conscientious, his works were meticulously beautiful and elegant, while shined with literati painting’s refined gracefulness and moist gentleness.

       “White Sun and Green Vine” referred to Freehand School painters Chen Chun and Xu Wei. Chen Chun (sobriquet White Sun Hermit) was a student of Wen Zhengming’s, whose freehand bird-and-flower painting was delicately and felicitously molded, precisely pruned, its mood peaceful and comfortable, and his brush and ink free at will. The one who fundamentally reformed freehand flower-and-bird genre was Xu Wei (sobriquet Retired Scholar Green Vine). He used brush strokes like the Wild Cursive in calligraphy to paint free and riotously, poured the ink incisively and thoroughly.

By making his image between likeness and unlikeness, he had pushed the freehand flower-and-bird genre to a higher state of expressing one’s strong inner feelings and sentiments, and he extended the full exertion and free control of brush and ink’s expression power on the raw motto paper to an unparalleled level, thus became a milestone in the development of Chinese flower-and-bird painting.

       In the later period of the Ming Dynasty there were two eminent figure-painting artists - Cheng Hongshou and Cui Zizhong, whom together were called “South Chen and North Cui”.

Figures in Cheng’s paintings all had very antique faces and stalwart bodies; the veins of their clothes piled and folded sturdily; and the colors were old but colorful, elegant and graceful. He was especially expert in the decorative technique of “turning the round into square and the whole into pieces”, which made him a very imaginative figure painting giant beyond his time. The engravings co-created by him and the celebrated engravers from Huizhou were a high consummation, and exerted a great influence on the Qing Dynasty, especially the “Three Rens” of the late Qing Dynasty.

       Huating School put much emphasis on the overall expression power of brush and ink, such as the Yunjian School represented by Shen Shichong and the Huating School represented by Dong qichang, of the two of whom Dong Qichang’s more influential.

Dong craved for the effect of putting calligraphy into painting, stressed for the momentum in composition, the virtuality and actuality in brush and ink, and the vividness and implication in tableau, being archaistic while having own ideas, reflected the typical mood of literati painting.