The flowers he painted are pleasing to the eyes and nourishing the spirit!
Yun Shouping (1633~1690), the name Shouping, the name Nantian, a famous calligrapher and painter in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, created a unique painting style of boneless flower painting, and was the founder of the Changzhou School of painting.
The children of the family stand out from the crowd
Yun Shouping was born in the family of the official eunuch, and he was a scholarly family, and his great-grandfather, grandfather, father, and uncle were either officials or scholars. Great-grandfather Yun Shaofang was a scholar of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty; grandfather Yun Yinghou was a supervisor of the Guozijian (the highest institution of learning in the Ming Dynasty) during the Wanli period; his father Yun Richu was a tribute student of Chongzhen in the sixth year and a scholar of Liu Shizhou; Tang Boyun was a famous landscape painter in the Ming Dynasty......
Such a good tutor made Yun Shouping a child when he was a child, and he had already learned poetry and rhythm, "Eight-year-old lotus flowers into sentences, shocking his school teacher", standing out among his peers.
Wandering away to serve the country and resist the Qing Dynasty
Born at the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the current situation and personal fate were the most chaotic. When Yun Shouping was 11 years old, his father was dissatisfied with the corrupt politics at the end of the Ming Dynasty and took his two children to live in seclusion in Tiantai Mountain, Zhejiang. After the Qing soldiers entered the customs, they carried out massacres in Yangzhou, Jiangyin, Hangzhou and other places, Yun Shouping fled to Fuzhou with his father and brother, and his father participated in the armed anti-Qing movement in Fuzhou, Fuzhou was broken by the Qing army, Yun Shouping fled to Guangzhou with his father and brother, running thousands of miles and displaced.
After arriving in Guangzhou, Wang Qi, the general of the Jianning Righteous Army in Fujian, invited Yun Shouping's father to Jianning to discuss the plan to resist the Qing Dynasty. Yun Shouping was only 15 years old at the time, but he already had a fairly high level of political insight. Through his judgment, his father and brother went to Jianning to join the rebel army. After arriving in Jianning, in the battle against the Qing Dynasty, Yun Shouping's eldest brother was killed. The Qing army of 60,000 besieged Jianning for more than 100 days, after Jianning was captured, the general Wang Qi committed suicide in the street battle, the second brother did not know what to do, and his father survived because he went out to ask for help, and the father and son were separated for many years.
狱中prison俘 初露才华
Yun Shouping was not killed, began a painful career as a slave, and later unexpectedly became the adopted son of Chen Jin, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, a general of the Qing army at the time. What's going on?
In the poems he later wrote, we know that this is related to a woman in a green house. This Qinglou woman was a song and dance prostitute in Jianning City at that time, and was taken in by Chen Jin after the destruction of Jianning City. At that time, Chen Jin's wife wanted to create some jewelry, and invited some painters to draw jewelry patterns, but she was not satisfied. The kabuki knew that Yun Shouping's drawings were very good, so he recommended Yun Shouping to draw a pattern for the governor's wife. The governor's wife saw that Yun Shouping was "handsome, calm in advance and retreat", outstanding character, and she happened to have no children, and she always wanted to adopt a child, so she was "overjoyed and had a child". In this way, Yun Shouping went from a prisoner of war camp to the son of the governor.
If he hadn't been born noble and talkative, and he hadn't been a descendant of the eunuch's family, he might have been in the barracks with ordinary soldiers, let alone have the opportunity to reunite with his father, let alone become a world-famous painter.
Father and son reunited, extremely loyal and filial
5 years after being adopted by Chen Jin, when Yun Shouping was 20 years old, Chen Jin was stabbed to death by his family, and Mrs. Chen took Nantian to the funeral, and gave Chen Jin a super death in Hangzhou Lingyin Temple. In the temple, Yun Shouping happened to meet his lost father. After recognizing Yun Shouping's father, he did not make a noise, and after discussing with the monk Di Hui of Lingyin Temple, the monk said to Mrs. Chen Jin, who came to burn incense and worship the Buddha: In terms of appearance, Yun Shouping is a person who is related to the Buddhist family, but unfortunately his life is not long, and the monk may be able to save the fate of early death.
The old lady cried and refused, and wanted to take Yun Shouping back to Beijing to inherit Chen Jin's title, but Yun Shouping said that he did not want to enjoy the glory and wealth, and was willing to become a monk in the temple. Mrs. Chen Jin is a person who believes in Buddhism, and in desperation, she has to reluctantly agree to leave Yun Shouping in the temple. Later, the famous dramatist Yuan Mei compiled Yun Shouping's early life experience into a script "Eagle Peak Yuan", which was widely sung in the nineteenth year of Kangxi and became a good story.
After the reunion, the father and son had nowhere else to go for a while, so it was convenient to live in the temple for several years, during which his father personally taught Yun Shouping to read, compose poetry, and paint, which laid a solid foundation for Yun Shouping's talent.
Qing Yun Shouping folded branches and peach figures
Enjoy the poverty and the fragrance of books
This lived for a few years, and after Yun Shouping grew into a young man, the father and son left Lingyin Temple and returned to their hometown of Wujin in Jiangsu. At this time, the house went through the war, the building was empty, and there was nothing left. The father and son rolled up their hands to rebuild their new home, leveled the land, planted vegetables and food on the land in front of and behind the house, ate what they planted, and bought pen, ink, paper and inkstone while farming, and still devoted themselves to the study of calligraphy and painting. Such a father and son are really the descendants of a scholarly family! Even if they farm, their faces are full of bookish air and the fragrance of books.
It was during this busy period of life that the young Yun Shouping met Wang Hui (huī), who was later known as the "Four Kings", and formed a deep friendship with Wang Hui. Wang Hui is extremely talented, especially good at painting landscapes, and is a person who has been praised by the crown prince Yinren with "clear landscapes". At that time, Yun Shouping was knowledgeable at home, good at painting flowers and birds, calligraphy and poetry were above Wang Hui, and had been called "Nantian Three Uniques" by the people of the time.
Masters compete with each other, always motivate each other, and be proud of each other. Wang Hui's poetry and writing are not as good as Yun Shouping's, and after painting, he asked Yun Shouping to inscribe for him; Yun Shouping, the landscape is slightly weaker than Wang Hui's, so he specializes in flowers, and has been painting flowers and plants, comparing the flowers of the people in the world.
Don't tend to be powerful, and be at ease all your life
Yun Shouping did not become an official all his life, not that he couldn't, but that he abided by his father's and brother's will to "disobey the Qing Dynasty": he should not take the imperial examination, did not take the bachelor's examination, did not tend to the powerful, was free and easy all his life, made a living from painting, and at the same time served his aging father who gave him his father's love uprightly.
Even if he later became famous all over the south and north of the Yangtze River, and some officials with a good reputation came to associate with him, he refused indifferently. If such a person came to ask him to paint, he would not agree, so that he annoyed the requester and sent him to prison for a minor punishment. Fortunately, Yun Shouping has so many people who admire his talent and have a deep friendship with him, and someone has gone to relieve him and save him home. This kind of life is really proud.
In the history of painting, Yun Shouping and Wang Shimin, Wang Jian, Wang Hui, Wang Yuanqi in the "Four Kings", as well as Wu Li of the same period, are called the "Six Masters of the Early Qing Dynasty", which shows his outstanding influence.
Among these six people, the "Four Kings" and Wu Li's traditional landscape achievements are the greatest, and the five people are more related to the past, almost affecting the painting world for nearly two centuries, among which only Yun Shouping is a single child, and wins with a small boneless flower, without the momentum of swallowing everything, but has his own style and nobility!
Qing Yun Shouping Wutong stone map
Boneless flowers are indifferent and noble
In fact, in Yun Shouping's own painting theory "Nantian Painting", the essence of this technique has already been pointed out: there is nowhere to be nothing, and nowhere is nowhere to be there. There is no bone outlining without lines, only according to the amount of water in the ink, between the looming and the present, the petals, branches and stamens are blurred, and the watery, clear and spiritual beauty of all the flowers in the world is painted.
Yun Shouping is very quiet and dedicated when he paints, and he gets up every morning to study and adjust all kinds of ink, and then lays out the paper to paint. When a guest comes, he will put away the paper and ink, and pour out the water for washing the pen, so that there is no trace of painting, and only reciting poetry to the guest. He doesn't pick up a pen to paint unless the guest says goodbye. This state of emptiness can be felt when reading his flowers: the picture is elegant and indifferent, there is no sonorous sound and fire, and in the silence, the pen is dyed with the wealth in his bones, but it is not noisy.
Many people have gained a lot of good results from his paintings. It's not just the good technique, but also how to nourish qi and how to make trade-offs in the world. Of course, this last point is not easy to learn, Gao Yi's character, without his previous prosperous family background as a foreshadowing, how can he be raised casually? Indifference and extravagance, seemingly simple, is actually the most difficult.
It can be said that Yun Shouping used his life to paint every kind of flower he could see. Before him, no one had painted flowers so deeply, and after him, no one had really painted as wonderful as he did, and had reached such a spirit. His flowers bloom from life, and looking at his paintings is pleasing to the eyes and nourishing the spirit!