Zhang Shengwen (12th century AD) [Southern Song Dynasty] Dali country, birth and death year unknown, painting history is not examined.
Good at painting figures, Buddha statues, the main artistic activities are equivalent to the Southern Song Dynasty filial piety (1163-1189) period, the hand-me-down works have the "Sanskrit Image" volume, paper, color and gold, 30.4 cm long, the first section is 61 cm horizontal, the second section is 61.5 cm horizontal, the third section is 61 cm horizontal, the picture scroll is based on the Buddha as the main line, depicting the Dali Emperor Lizhen Emperor and the concubine Buddha and the sixteen kings, the thirteen generations of Nanzhao Wang, Yunnan famous monks and other themes, the images in the picture are solemn and wonderful, with the pen Seiko, the lines are smooth, the calligraphy of each section of the inscription is simple and thick, there is the style of the Tang people. At the end of the volume, there are inscriptions by Shi Miaoguang, Song Lian, Shi Zongxi, Shi Laifu, Zeng Ying and others, among which the famous monk Miaoguang of Dali inscribed and said: "Zhang Shengwen, the national painter of Dali...... It is really like the legacy of God Mu Zhang (monk) Wu (Daozi), and the beautiful deeds of the Wu (Zongyuan) clan. At the end of the article, there is "the eleventh day of the first month of the fifth year of Gengzi year of Shengde", according to the examination of "five years of Shengde" for the reign of Duan Zhixing (also known as Emperor Lizhen) of Xuanzong of Dali, "Gengzi year" is equivalent to the seventh year of Chunxi of Xiaozong of the Southern Song Dynasty (1180). The volume of "Sanskrit Images" should have been completed before this time, and it is now in the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
