At the time of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Yun Shouping, who was born in a family of eunuchs and Confucians, had a difficult and dangerous life experience in his youth, an irreversible social situation after he became an adult, and became a monk in order to get rid of the "carving cage" after the defeat of the Qing Dynasty, immersed himself in the study of poetry, calligraphy and painting under the guidance of his father and uncle, and made friends with The Taoists. Confucian and Taoist thought was integrated into Yun Shouping's body and mind and expressed through his literary and artistic creations.
The "Collection of Incense Pavilions" reflects his painting ideas in a concentrated way, and he is good at both landscapes, flowers and birds in the creation of paintings, especially in the creative restoration and development of the long-lost boneless flower and bird art. The composition of his boneless flowers and birds is simple and exquisite, the colors are pale and beautiful, the intention is super easy and dusty, and the plain and natural in the splendor makes the declining boneless flower and bird art shine again.
Yun Shouping (Achievement in painting, when the first to promote flower and bird painting. But in fact, Yun Shouping was known for his landscape painting in his early years, "little work landscape, thousands of miles, smoke and clouds, more imitation of the Yellow Crane Mountain Tree", Zhang Geng's "National Dynasty Painting Collection" also said that his early years were "good at painting landscapes, shouldering retro". Judging from the works that have been handed down from generation to generation, if yun Shouping's works are divided into early and late works in 1672 when he was 40 years old, there are 29 works with annual models before the age of 40, of which 25 are landscapes, accounting for 86% of the total, only 3 are flowers and birds, accounting for 10%, and the other is calligraphy. From this, it can be seen that his early years focused on the creation of landscape painting.
Interestingly, when Yun Shouping, who is known for his landscape and water, befriended Wang Fei and saw Wang Yi's widely respected landscape paintings, he found that he was extremely close to Wang Yi's brushwork, "Since the material cannot be out of the right, it is said that Shi Gu Yue: It is the Tao that makes the brother walk alone." Arrogance, shame as the second hand in the world." Therefore, he "gave up the landscape and studied flowers, considered the ancient and modern, took the Northern Song Dynasty Xu Chongsi as the homecoming, washed the habits of the times, opened his face alone, and was a decent school of life, by the Hai Nei scholar Zongzhi."
This passage has since been quoted in various versions of painting history or notes, and has become a clear evidence of Yun Shouping's humility and widely recited. However, the landscape painter Dai Xi (1801-1860) during the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty did not agree with Yun Shouping's statement: "This is also the ancient people's burning of pens and stones, and it is not true that the landscape is dedicated to flowers." Later generations have studied Yun painting to a certain year to make landscapes, and since a certain year to make flowers, is it not more than a fool's dream? "Actually, it makes a lot of sense.
What he is best at is boneless painting. Regarding the historical origin of boneless painting, it was first called "concave and convex flowers". Volume XVII of Xu Song's Jiankang Shilu of the Tang Dynasty writes: "(Datong 3rd year) set up a temple, and went northwest to the county of Liuli ... The temple gate is covered with concave and convex flowers, which are called Zhang Monk's handwriting. Its flowers are made of Tianzhu relics, Zhu and qinglu; when you look at the dizziness of the eyes from a distance, you can see that it is flat, the world is salty, and the name of the temple is concave and convex. ”
The Tang Dynasty Xu Song mentioned in the Jiankang Shilu (建康實錄), the Zhang monk, studied under the mural of the "Bump Temple" painted by Yu Tianzhu. At present, the original works of Zhang Shengxuan can no longer be found. "No bones", first mentioned in the Northern Song Dynasty Shen Kuo's "Mengxi Pen Talk": "At the beginning of the country, Jiangnan cloth Cloth Xu Xi and pseudo-Shu Yuan, good at fame for a while." Later, Jiang Nanping, Xu Xi went to The Beijing Division, and sent the picture academy to its painting grid.
Zhu Huang painted flowers, the magic is in the color, with a pen is very new and fine, no ink is seen, but dyed with light color is called sketching. Xu Xi painted it with ink and brush, special grass, and a little Dan powder, saying that his paintings were evil and not out of line. The son of Xi is the same as the Yellow Grid, not to mention the use of pen and ink, straight to the color of the picture, so-called the boneless figure..."
Ci Hai's explanation of "bonelessness": "The name of chinese painting technique." Instead of using ink lines as bones, the image is directly depicted in color. Five generations later, the Shu Huang Tsuen painting is more delicate, and the handwriting is almost invisible after coloring, which is inherently known as 'boneless flower branches'. Tong Shuye in "The Abyss of the Boneless Painting Method" yun: "The character paintings made by the monks have a boneless method in the background of the landscape, and it is also possible to write a pen." Boneless landscape water originated in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and the Tang and Song dynasties also made it, and Dong Xiangguang once studied Tang Yangsheng's "Pu XueTu of Gongguan", which is the boneless method. ”
Yun Shouping believes: "The sketcher takes the boneless flower as the most victorious, and creates the landscape from the monk, which is like the heavenly sun yunjin, which can be like the non-resurrection machine. In the Northern Song Dynasty, Xu Shi considered the bone method, and the Dingzong monks were all infected with five colors. ”
Yun Shouping's painting creation has depicted falling trees, dead branches, etc., paying attention to creating a desolate and cold place when creating, imitating the creative style of the Yuanren when describing natural scenes, integrating the subject's spiritual feelings into the painting creation, fully demonstrating the sense of loneliness and tragedy of the subject's creation, and containing compassion for the individual life.
In addition, Yun Shouping believes that the artistic conception and art expressed in the creation of painting are not only a display of the basic form of the object, but also a guide for the viewer to perceive and understand the existence. The creation of painting art transcends the connotation expressed on paper, contains the creator's understanding of nature and the spirit of the universe, and condenses the connotation of Chinese cultural thought.
Painting creates a world full of spirituality, and people enhance their understanding and understanding of the natural world, the universe, and life in the process of appreciation. In the creation of painting, Yun Shouping emphasizes the creation of the teacher method and pursues a higher level of painting creation, that is, the painting creator must have a broad mind and cannot be bound by the external environment and various ideas.
Yun Shouping realized the sublimation of personal thought and morality in his painting creation, and on the basis of understanding the beauty of natural landscapes, fishes and insects, he created a world of peace and purity for people with the mentality of not being bound by society and the temptation of fame and fortune.