Text / Han Xiang
Summary: The "Four Kings" is an excellent painting group active in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, and it is an important painting genre that has continued to expand on the basis of traditional painting after the "Wumen School" and the "Songjiang School". They created a new style of landscape painting, which together with the landscape painting style created by the "Four Monks" painting group was preserved as a classic of Chinese landscape painting, becoming a symbol and representative of Chinese painting in the 17th century, and has a profound influence that cannot be ignored until now.
"Four Kings" is a collective name given by the history of painting to Wang Shimin, Wang Jian, Wang Yi and Wang Yuanqi, important landscape painters who have been active in China's Jiangnan region since the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. Wang Shimin, Wang Jian, and Wang Yuanqi were from Taicang, and Wang Yi was a chang acquaintance, and they had a mentorship and kinship relationship between them (Wang Shimin and Wang Jian were dong Qichang's students, Wang Yi was Wang Shimin and Wang Jian's students, and Wang Yuanqi was Wang Shimin's grandson). At the same time, they have a relatively consistent value standard in the aesthetic pursuit of painting, so the history of painting is often called "four kings" and becomes a specific title. The "Four Kings" painting style is most appreciated by the Qing court, and its painting style and aesthetic mood are also deeply loved by literati and folk, so it is regarded as the "authentic" of China's landscape painting, and has the reputation of "orthodoxy". The "Four Kings" landscape painting style has been influential for 200 to 300 years, and is one of the most important mainstream paintings since the Ming and Qing dynasties in China, and an outstanding representative of mainstream landscape painting since the early Qing Dynasty.
Qing Wang Jian Yanfu Yuanxiu Figure 198.4cm× 54.2cm
Collection of Nanjing Museum
First, the "Four Kings" and their painting style characteristics
The landscape paintings of the "Four Kings" have inherited the painting methods of Dong Yuan, Juran, Huang Gongwang, Ni Zhan, Wang Meng, Wu Zhen, Shen Zhou, Dong Qichang and others, and have established a new style of painting on the basis of the paintings of Huang Gongwang and Dong Qichang, and have embarked on a new artistic path. For example, Wang Shimin's painting styles such as "Cang Xiu Gao Hua, Conquering the Ancients", Wang Jian's "Shen Xiong Ancient Yi, Dyeing and Long", Wang Yi's "Manpower is Deep, The Law is Thorough", and Wang Yuanqi's "Brushwork is Vigorous, the Smell is High and Light" and other painting styles have left an extremely deep impression on people, creating a new style model in the history of Landscape Painting in China.
Qing Wang Shimin Dajuyuan axis 128.4cm× 57.2cm
(1) Wang Shimin (1592 AD - 1680 AD)
Wang Shimin, zi xunzhi, numbered smoker, old man of Xilu. A native of Taicang (present-day Jiangsu). Wang Shimin was promoted to the leader of the painting world together with Wang Jian, known as the "Second King", and was one of the six great masters of the "Orthodox School" in the early Qing Dynasty. Chongzhen initially produced The Prince of Taichang Temple, so he was also called "Wang Fengchang". Grandfather Wang Xijue was a Xiangguo during the Ming Dynasty, and his family was rich in collection, and he studied the famous relics of the Song and Yuan Dynasties, especially the Landscape of Huang Gongwang, deliberately copied, and formed his own distinctive painting characteristics. In the theory of painting, there are "Xitian Collection" and "Xilu Painting Trek" surviving. Wang Shimin was known to Dong Qichang and Chen Jiru when he was a teenager, and he studied from Dong Qichang and Chen Jiru for a long time, so that his painting style was deeply influenced by Dong Qichang, and on the basis of mastering the brush and ink skills of the ancients, he established his own unique painting style.
Qing Wang Yi Landscape 39.5cm×101 .8cm
Wang Shimin's works have their own distinctive characteristics in terms of intention, layout, pen, color, and line, especially in the overall style of the beauty of cang and tenderness. Wang Shimin's paintings are generally based on ochre and flower blue after a little sketching, multi-level hood dyeing, verdant, thick and graceful, revealing a fresh atmosphere in calm, the composition layout is deep and majestic, and the pen and ink are vague and beautiful, dull and tender. Because of the relative proximity to modern times, his paintings have always been cherished by people, so there are more works that have survived to the present, such as the Collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing "Du Fu's Poetic Intentions", the Nanjing Museum's Collection of "Reply to the Chrysanthemum as a Landscape Map", the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art in the United States, and the "Ink Pen Landscape Map" in the Osaka Municipal Museum of Art in Japan, which are all more important works of Wang Shimin, which reflect some of his painting characteristics.
Qing Wang Yuanqi Qiao Songxiu Bamboo Chart Axis 83cm×43cm
(2) Wang Jian (1598 AD - 1677 AD)
Wang Jian (王鉴), also spelled Xuanzhao (玄照), later changed to Character Photograph (字字照), was a yuanzhao (元照), a yuanzhao (元照), and a xiangbi (湘碧), who called himself the lord of the Dyeing Xiang Temple and a descendant of Mount Tai. Because he was the prefect of Lianzhou, he was called "Wang Lianzhou". People from Taicang, Jiangsu. Wang Jian and Wang Shimin are equally famous. Wang Jian is a long-lived painter with a high life expectancy of 80 years. His first 40 years were devoted to his career, and his last 40 years were devoted to painting. Wang Jian's ancient skills are above Wang Shimin, and he is all over the five dynasties and the song and Yuan masterpieces, especially concentrating on the "Four Families of the Yuan". Landscape painting is mainly based on shallow and green landscapes, with a rounded brushwork in middle age, which becomes vitriol in his later years, and his personal characteristics are also very distinct. Wang Jian's landscape paintings are gorgeous and bright, often giving people a sense of beauty and clarity.
Qing Wang Shimin Imitation of the Great Idiot Color Landscape Atlas 155cm× 72.5cm
The pen is thick and simple, the layers are rich, and the pen and ink are smooth and elegant, clean and round. The color of the work, the pen strength is deep and stable, the color is not sullen, and it has a high painting skill. Wang Jian's surviving works are also relatively numerous, such as the Nanjing Museum's collection of "Xi Se Shu Sheng Tu", "Floating Lan Nuan Cui Tu", "Summer Mountain Residence Map", Shanghai Museum's "Qiu Shan Tu" and "Xi Shan Shen Xiu Tu", Beijing Palace Museum's collection of "Four Reiki Maps" and "Dream Map", the Cleveland Museum of Art in the United States "Cloud Ridge Song Yin Tu", and the Kyoto National Museum's collection of "Imitation Zi Jiu Shan Shui Tu", etc., all of which are enough to show the artistic characteristics of his landscape paintings.
Qing Wang Yi Gumuqi peak chart axis 120cm× 42 .8cm
(3) Wang Yi (1632 AD - 1717 AD)
Wang Yi, Zi Shi Gu, The Number Cultivator Smoke Scatterer, Sword Gate Woodcutter, Wumu Mountain Man, Qinghui Old Man, etc. Jiangsu Changshu people. It is also one of the "Six Greats of the Early Qing Dynasty". Because Wang Yi's landscape painting collection is the culmination of the ancient techniques, it has the reputation of "painting saint" in the history of painting. There were many people who studied painting from him, and as many as a thousand people studied painting, so they became the leader of the "Yushan Painting School". Painting theory includes the Ten Volumes of Qinghui's Gifts. Wang Yi's father Wang Yunrong was famous for his landscapes, which laid a good foundation for his later painting and artistic creation from an early age. In his early years, Wang Yi worshipped Zhang Ke as a teacher to study landscapes, and then took Wang Jian and Wang Shimin as his teachers, and later he was appreciated by Kangxi, and he was able to look at the famous relics of the past dynasties hidden in the Inner Province, and his painting art made great progress, and he did not learn from the ancients, forming his own unique painting face.
Qing Wang Jian Songlin Evening Show 198.4cm×54.2cm
In his early years, his pen and ink were beautiful and elegant, his middle-aged pen was delicate and dense, and in his later years, he used his pen to be rigorous and rigorous, the ink color was full of changes, and the artistic conception was far-reaching and subtle, reaching the realm of Dacheng. Wang Yi's existing paintings are also very rich, such as the "Autumn Mountain Mangrove Tree Map" collected by the Palace Museum in Beijing, the "Fangzhou Map" in the Collection of the Changshu Museum, the "Shantang Wenhui Map" in the Nanjing Museum Collection, the "Small and Medium Present Large Atlas" in the Shanghai Museum, the "Kangxi Southern Tour Map" in the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the United States, the "Autumn Color Map of Yushan Mountain" in the Collection of the University of Michigan Art Museum, and the "Overview Map of Jiangshan" in the Collection of the National Museum of Tokyo, Japan, which are all surviving masterpieces of Wang Yi.
Qing Wang Yi Shan Tang Wenhui Chart Axis 206.1cm×97cm
(4) Wang Yuanqi (1642 AD - 1715 AD)
Wang Yuanqi (王原祁), also spelled Maojing (茂京), was a Lutai and Shishi Daoist. A native of Taicang, Jiangsu, he was the grandson of Wang Shimin. In the ninth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1670 AD), jinshi, who was an official to the Hubu Shilang, was known as Wang Sinong, an important founder of the "Loudong School". In terms of painting theory, he has published such as "Rain Window Long Brush". In the forty-fourth year of Kangxi (1705 AD), he was instructed to compile the "Peiwen Zhai Calligraphy and Painting Notation" with Sun Yueyi and Song Junye, and in the fifty-sixth year of Kangxi (1717 AD), he presided over the painting of the "Wanshou Grand Ceremony", which had a great influence on court painting at that time.
Qing Wang Jian Heyue Tiankaitu 198.4cm×54.2cm
Wang Yuanqi achieved the highest achievement in painting in the "Four Kings", creating the painting realm that Dong Qichang, Wang Shimin and Wang Jian dreamed of achieving but actually not achieving. Wang Yuanqi inherited the family law and learned the tradition of the "Four Families of the Yuan", especially with Huang Gongwang as the sect, liked to use dry pen to burn ink, layer by layer, use pen to be calm, painting style elegant and clean, thick and empty, pen and ink beautiful and clean, Shen Xiong wanton. Wang Yuanqi's extant works mainly include: the Palace Museum's collection of "Imitation huang gongwang landscape picture scroll" and "farewell poetic intention", the Nanjing Museum's collection of "Qiao Songxiu Bamboo Map", the Shanghai Museum's collection of "Imitation Zijiu Landscape Map" and "Landscape Map for Liuji", the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Museum's collection of "Nanshan Jicui Picture Volume", the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection of "Yuanchuan Map", and the Kyoto National Museum's collection of "Landscape Map", all of which are enough to highlight his painting artistic characteristics.
Qing Wang Jian Guan Shan Ji Ri Tu 198.4cm× 54.2cm
It is precisely the differences in the knowledge structure, aesthetic trend and personality temperament and life experience of the "four kings" that have enabled them to form a painting appearance and style characteristics with quite individual characteristics, Wang Shimin's Cangxiu Gaohua, shenyu and tender, Wang Jian's Shenxiong Guyi, Xiurun Qinglang, Wang Yi's meticulous and dense, beautiful and elegant, Wang Yuanqi's thick and fresh, Xiurun canghun and so on, have become classics in the history of China's painting style.
Second, the inheritance of the "Four Kings", the overall painting style characteristics and its artistic value
The new style of landscape painting created by the "Four Kings" was very in line with the aesthetic trend of the people at that time, so it won high respect and praise from both the government and the public, so a series of new schools of landscape painting were established with them as the center. There are two main schools of painting that are more important and influential, namely the "Loudong School" (also known as the "Taicang School") and the "Yushan School", which are widely known for their large scale, large number of members and great achievements. Wang Shimin, Wang Jian, and Wang Yuanqi were taicang people, and because of their geographical prestige, the history of painting referred to the painting school they founded as the "Loudong School" (also known as the "Taicang School"). Wang Yi was a Changshu person, so he called the school of painting he founded "Yushan School".
Qing Wang Jian Water Reed Figure 198.4cm×54.2cm
According to the data, the painters of the "Loudong School" mainly include: Wang Shimin, Wang Jian, Wang Yuanqi, Huang Ding, Tang Dai, Fang Shishu, Zhang Zongcang, Dong Bangda, Qian Weicheng, Cao Peiyuan, Jin Yongxi, Li Weixian, Wang Shuming, Wen Yi, Hua Kun, Wang Chen, Hua Kun, Wang Zhuo, Wang Gao, Wang Huan, Wang Xuehao, Wang Sanxi, Wang Caiping, Wang Caiping, Wang Caiping, Wang Shouzhen, Wang Guoguang, Wang Xiang, Wang Yingkui, Wang Yinglin, Wang Yingshou, Wang Yinghong, Wang Xuan, Wang Fengyi, Wang Sanxi, Shengdashi, Tang Yifen, Zhu Ben, Liu Yongzhi, and Wang Tingzhou , Wang Yingshou, Wang Xiang, Hua Yilun, Jin Xiaqi, Yao Tingmu, Chen Yong, Chen Ding, Huang Yu, Lang Biaochang, Qin Bingwen, Xi Gang, Dai Xi, Chen Ruomu, Huang Binhong, Zhang Zhiwan, Gu Fa, Wu Dacheng, Lu Hui, He Shisun, Gu Linshi, Xiao Junxian, Wu Cheng, Feng Yi and others. The main members of the "Yushan School" were: Wang Yi, Wu Li, Wang Yu, Wang Jiu, Yuan Zhong, Yang Jin, Gu Fang, Yu Yuan, Song Junye, Shi Shangrui, Cai Yuan, Dong Bangda, Xu Mei, Rong Lin, Shen Gui, Wang Liang, Fang Landai, Jin Xuejian, Xu Rong, Hu Jie, Wang Jun, Tang Jun, Yao Kuang, Yuan Weizu, Zhang Peng, Zhang Pushan, Xi Gang, Huang Xiaosong, Wu Zhuxu, Dai Shuoshi, Shen Shiqiao, Xu Fang, Gu Wenyuan, Cai Jia, Li Shizuo and others. Due to their large number of members and far-reaching influence, these two major painting schools have become the mainstream landscape painting schools with far-reaching influence since the Qing Dynasty. Wang Shimin, Wang Jian, Wang Yuanqi and Wang Yi have also become the soul and pioneer of these two major painting schools because of their outstanding artistic achievements in landscape painting and their creative spirit in the field of painting.
Qing Wang Jian Qiushan Yokodaitu 198.4cm×54.2cm
Because the "Four Kings" have a close relationship between teachers, friends and relatives, which are expressed in the painting style and artistic thought, they also present similar value pursuits and relatively close aesthetic concepts, and also establish their typical overall painting style characteristics. In particular, on the basis of inheriting the painting traditions of Huang Gongwang, Wu Zhen, Wang Meng, Ni Zhan, Dong Qichang of the Ming Dynasty, and the famous landscape painters of the Tang and Song Dynasties, they created a new style of landscape painting with abstract aesthetic style characteristics, which made landscape painting in their hands a great distance from traditional landscape painting, and became a sign of the maturity of their holistic painting style. The emergence of the "Four Kings" abstract painting style and the main body style marks that Chinese landscape painting has consciously entered the era of subject style pursuit from the era of object style pursuit, thus becoming the pioneer of modern Chinese painting because of some modern painting elements it possesses.
Qing Wang Jian Chuntai Wanlingtu 198.4cm×54.2cm
The creative exploration of the pen and ink form in which the "Four Kings" are located, and their conscious exploration of aesthetic abstract style, are nearly 200 years ahead of the major shift in the aesthetic style and concept of Western painting after the emergence of "Impressionism" in the West in the 19th century. It is also from the "Four Kings", from the formal structure, abstract aesthetic style, Chinese painting finally in its own internal continued to undergo extremely drastic changes, from which the concept of painting with modern significance was born, which can not but be said to be a major breakthrough in Chinese painting concepts and painting styles. From this point of view, the artistic value of the "Four Kings" in the field of landscape painting is self-evident, and in terms of the inheritance and innovation of Chinese painting, it can bring us considerable enlightenment and significance.
III. Conclusion
The achievements of the "Four Kings" painting art are of course due to their different nature and diligence, but the overall transformation of the social and cultural atmosphere and the major changes they face in the era have enabled them to finally walk out of the new art road of transforming from the object landscape to the main body landscape on the basis of the painting artistic achievements made by their predecessors, through their creative efforts, and the apprentices of the ancients and the source of the teacher's heart, and finally out of the new art road of transforming from the object landscape to the main body landscape, and finally out of the development path from focusing on the object style to shaping the main body style. They have also become outstanding models and representatives of the transformation period of Chinese landscape painting because of their successful exploration.
Qing Wang Jian Xianyuan Jicuitu 198.4cm×54.2cm
In particular, it is worth emphasizing that the significance and value of the emergence of the "Four Kings" painting art are not only a certain inevitability of the internal changes of Chinese landscape painting, but also because of some of the new conceptual factors and new painting characteristics they have excavated inside Chinese landscape painting, which has also created another peak in the history of Chinese landscape painting. Since the Six Dynasties, especially since the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the high development of Chinese landscape painting has provided a solid historical foundation for the emergence of the "Four Kings" painting concept and painting style. It is precisely because of the highly developed history of landscape painting in China that the "Four Kings" have obtained rich cultural resources, and through systematic combing and creative transformation, they have become the pioneers of modern Landscape Painting in China. This is perhaps the most valuable and shining point of the emergence of the "Four Kings" painting art after Dong Qichang. It is precisely in this way that the "Four Kings" painting has had a profound impact on the development of landscape painting in China, and has always had a painting value and significance that cannot be ignored until now.
Qing Wang Jian Fangjiao Rain Map 198.4cm×54.2cm
Qing Wang Jian Jiangxiang early summer figure 198.4cm× 54.2cm
Qing Wang Jian Xi Color Sound Chart Axis 118cm× 61.9cm
This image is from the March 2010 issue of World of Calligraphy and Painting
Original title: A Brief Introduction to the Art of Painting of the "Four Kings" of the Qing Dynasty