Chinese Paintings and Calligraphy of the Wu School

GALLERY 16 THROUGH NOVEMBER 5, 2006

Wen Zhengming (1470-1559) The Seven Junipers (detail) Ming dynasty, dated 1532 Handscroll, ink on paper Gift of Mrs. Carter Galt, 1952 (1666.1)

The Wu School was one of the dominant schools of Ming dynasty (1368–1644) painting. Named for the ancient Wu kingdom in south-central China, located in modern Jiangsu Province, this school was dominated by a group of scholar-amateur, or literati artists. It was traditionally believed to have been founded by Shen Zhou (1427–1509), a great artist who lived in the affluent city of Suzhou, the ancient capital of the Wu kingdom. Located between the modern cities of Shanghai and Nanjing (Nanking), Suzhou was famous for its scholars, gardens, and cultural life.

With few exceptions, the artists of the early and middle Ming Wu School were inspired by the art of the Four Great Masters of the Yuan dynasty (1260–1368): Huang Gongwang, Wang Meng, Wu Zhen, and Ni Zan. These earlier artists, who had lived during the Mongol occupation of the fourteenth century, cultivated an ideal of the artist as a self-reliant creator who specialized in the Three Perfections: painting, calligraphy, and poetry. This ideal was widely popularized in the Ming dynasty. The painters of the Wu School created a style that utilized a distinctively understated combination of refined brushwork, muted coloring, and beautifully composed scenery that was deceptive in its apparent simplicity.

This exhibition, drawn from the Academy’s permanent collection, includes works from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The artists represented all lived and worked in Suzhou. The show includes paintings by the early Wu School masters Xie Jin and Liu Jue, predecessors of Shen Zhou who transmitted the styles of the Four Great Masters of the Yuan into the early Ming dynasty.

The greatest of all the Ming Wu School artists was Shen Zhou’s pupil Wen Zhengming (1470 –1559). One of Wen’s masterpieces is the handscroll entitled, The Seven Junipers, a topographical handscroll depicting seven gnarled trees planted in the year 500 A.D. on the grounds of the Zhidao Guan, a Daoist temple in Changshu, Jiangsu province. The trees were believed to be manifestations of the seven stars of the Northern Dipper (Ursa major), the most powerful constellation in the Daoist heavens. In addition to forming an outdoor altar, the trees were traditionally likened to dragons and immortals, a connection suggested by the contorted shapes of the ancient trees’ trunks and branches, and fully articulated in the poem inscribed by the artist at the end of the scroll.

The exhibition also includes works by Wen Zhengming’s pupils Chen Chun (Chen Daofu) and Lu Zhi, as well as by his contemporaries Qiu Ying and Xie Shichen.