Qing Dynasty art master Zhao Zhiqian's collection of flowers and birds

In the history of art in the late Qing Dynasty, Zhao Zhiqian is undoubtedly one of the most important artists. He was an innovative pioneer who followed the "Eight Monsters" with a unique painting style in the old conservative painting world, and made unremitting efforts in poetry, books, paintings and printing all his life, and finally became a generation of masters, giving a great influence to the painting world in the late Qing Dynasty.

Zhao Zhiqian (8 August 1829 – 18 November 1884) was a Han Chinese and a native of Huiji (present-day Shaoxing), Zhejiang. The initial character Yifu , the number Leng Jun ; later changed to the word huī ( uncle ) , the number of sorrowful an , Mei An , Wu Min and so on. Famous calligrapher and painter of the Qing Dynasty, seal engraver.

Since his youth, Zhao Zhiqian has devoted himself to the study of scriptures, scriptural exhortations, and the study of golden stones, and has made considerable achievements, especially in calligraphy, painting, and seal carving. Zhao Zhiqian is good at learning from the predecessors and the famous masters of various schools of the same generation, and at the same time, he is not limited to the predecessors and has the courage to innovate. In painting, he was a pioneer of the "Maritime School", and the "golden stone painting style" created by him with books and prints had a great influence on the development of modern freehand flowers.

In terms of calligraphy, he was the most powerful practitioner of the theory of steleology in the Qing Dynasty, and the formation of his Weibei style of calligraphy made the technical system of the Stele School further improve, thus becoming the first model of the Qing Dynasty to truly comprehensively study the stele in the right, line, seal, and subordinate bodies.

In the seal carving, he has extensively taken the law on the basis of his predecessors, integrated it thoroughly, and creatively inherited Deng Shiru's creative mode of "printing from the book" with the means of "seeking printing outside the printing", opening up an unprecedented new realm. Zhao Zhiqian's seal engraving has achieved great achievements and has a far-reaching impact on future generations. In modern times, painters such as Wu Changshuo and Qi Baishi have benefited a lot from other places.

In the painting world, Zhao Zhiqian was the pioneer of the "Maritime Painting School", using books and printing into paintings, creating the "Golden Stone Painting Style". Before Zhao Zhiqian, the flower and bird paintings in the Qing Dynasty painting circle were represented by Yun Nantian, who specialized in boneless methods, elegant and bright colors, and opened up a new style of the times. Later, the "Eight Monsters of Yangzhou" came out, pursuing books into paintings, not pursuing similarities, but only emphasizing their gods.