"The Biography of the Painter" ~ 324th
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="2" > Shen Quan was selected by the famous Japanese painter Maruyama Yingju as "the first imported painter". </h1>
Text/Lu Xiuhui
Shen Quan (1682-1760), also known as Hengzhi (衡之), was a native of Xinshi Town, Deqing County, Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province.
Due to his family's poverty, Shen Quan followed his father to learn handicrafts such as paper flowers, wreaths, and paper houses, so he had a better understanding of the structure of flowers, plants, animals, and birds. When Shen Quan was twelve or thirteen years old, he often went with his father to Pinghu Lake in Zhejiang To sell cotton silk, and every time he saw him in front of the door of the flower and bird painter Hu Mei, Shen Quan stopped to watch for a long time and did not want to leave. When his father saw him like this, he consulted with Hu Mei and wanted to leave Shen Quan to follow Hu Mei to learn painting. Hu Mei gladly agreed, and Shen Quan worshiped Hu Mei as a teacher and became Hu Mei's disciple. A few years later, Shen Quan left his teacher when he was about 20 years old, and from then on, he concentrated on painting and made a living by selling paintings and talking about his livelihood.
Hu Mei's grandfather Xiang Yuanbian is one of The rare collectors of calligraphy and paintings in China, and his collection is rich in the world, and Hu Mei has looked at his collection and imitated it diligently. Insects, fish, flowers and birds, all of them can not be. His inscription was a bizarre gesture, and when asked, he said, "I am afraid that people will mess with my true deeds." In his paintings, he often wrote: "If you don't meet a connoisseur, you'd rather fall into Xianyang City." Hu Mei's paintings could be pawned at that time, and the pawnshop was most afraid of people redeeming his paintings, which showed his influence. When the sheriff heard that he was also good at poetry and wanted to invite him into the curtain and sent someone to invite him, he closed the door. He often said to people conceitedly, "Am I not as good as Shen Shitian (Zhou) and Xiao Zhimu (Yun Cong)?" When Zhu Yizun came to Pinghu to look for Gao Shiqi, he met Hu Mei, who was also a relic, and wrote a poem:
Every time I think of the wind god in the painting,
Today when the feast turns to relatives.
White-haired green shirts scattered,
Gangnam saw another remnant.
Lu Jishi to distinguish between insects and fish,
Plant classification Kusa-koju.
Anderson is a portrayal,
Only the old eyes gradually blurred.
In the ninth year of Yongzheng (1731), Emperor Keihito of the Japanese King Zhongyumen heard the names of Hu Mei and Shen Quan, and saw Shen Quan's "Hundred Horse Diagrams" by Shen Quan, and was very appreciative in his heart, and sent envoys to hire them to go to Japan. At that time, during the Tokugawa shogunate period of the Edo period in Japan, Tokugawa Yoshimune was appointed as the eighth generation of the Edo shogunate, and Japan was moving towards ZTE. When Hu Mei had died, Shen Quannai gladly applied, and Shen Quan and his disciples Zheng Pei, Gao Jun, and Gao Qian went to Japan and lived in Nagasaki for two years, where they were honored. As a disciple of Hu Mei, Shen Quan absorbed his painting strengths and inherited the excellent painting methods of his teacher. The "Chronicle of Characters of Zhejiang Province" records: "His paintings are far from the Huangjia painting school of the Song Dynasty, and the flowers and animals painted by Lü Jishan in the Ming Dynasty recently inherited, and the workmanship is exquisite, the color is rich, and the ingenuity of the beam is extremely ingenious." Pay attention to realism, the painting style is rigorous and meticulous, and the shape is accurate and vivid. While learning Huang Xiao's painting style, Shen Quan also learned the painting style of Lü Ji of the Ming Dynasty.
During his time in Japan, Shen Quan often interacted with Japanese painters, and also had contacts with Nagasaki school painters such as Keizan Ohara and Hideki Watanabe. When Owara Qingshan visited Shen Quan, he gave his work "Ink Dragon Diagram" to Shen Quan, and Shen Quan also gave his flower and bird works to Ohara Qingshan as a thank you. Watanabe Hideki specially made two statues of Confucius and Guan Yu to present to Shen Quan, who was given a book in thanks. A Japanese friend said: "Sir, he got the spirit of the Tang Dynasty, confronted the Song people, washed the ancient Danqing, and even opened up the program of affairs, and tried to make the inferior disciples envious, and now they are humiliated, thinking that they are rare." Shen Quan also accepted the only disciple in Japan, the pioneer of Japanese southern painting and the head of the Nagasaki school, Kumashiro Xiongfei.
Kumashiro Kumachi was a Japanese painter of Nagasaki during the Edo period. The family has served as a Chinese translator for generations. Influenced by his family since childhood, he loves Chinese culture and is proficient in Chinese. As a teenager, he studied Chinese painting with Hideshi Watanabe. In 1731 (the sixteenth year of His Life), after Shen Quan arrived in Nagasaki, he took Shen Nanping as his teacher, systematically studied Chinese painting techniques, especially loved the painting style of Chinese painters of the Ming and Qing dynasties, and became the pioneer of the Japanese Southern School of Painting, which was quite influential in the Japanese painting world at that time.
In September of the eleventh year of Yongzheng (1733), after Shen Quan returned to China, he gradually explored and studied traditional flower and bird paintings, and absorbed the strengths of various genres, compatible with the absorption of color and composition techniques of Western painting, which was a period of transformation in his creation, and the painting style was rich and prosperous. In the prosperous era of Kangqian, many foreign painters appeared in the court, such as Lang Shining, Ai Qimeng, Wang Zhicheng, Andeyi, etc., who came to China as missionaries, because the Pope of Rome sent emissaries to China many times and ordered that Chinese Catholic believers were not allowed to sacrifice to heaven, worship Confucius, and worship ancestors. In the first month of the sixtieth year of the Kangxi Dynasty, the Kangxi Emperor saw the papacy's ban and was very angry, which aroused his high vigilance. He issued a directive on the ban: "After that, there is no need for Westerners to practice religion in China, and it is forbidden to do so, so as not to cause trouble." This ban was enforced for more than a hundred years, until the outbreak of the Opium War, and the Qing government was forced to lift it. Missionaries in China showed their magic in order to survive. Among them, many skilled people were able to show their skills in the palace, including painters.
In order to cater to the preferences of the emperor, these painters began to integrate Chinese and Western painting methods, and a number of Chinese painters who participated in Western painting appeared in the palace, such as Jiao Bingzhen, Leng Ming, Tang Dai, Ding Guanpeng, Yu Sheng, Jiang Tingxi, Zou Yigui, etc., and they all left works that combined Western painting techniques. As a painter of flowers and birds in the court, Shen Quan was good at painting flowers and feathers, walking animals, absorbing the strengths of all the families, developing in sketching, and opening up his own new world.
After Shen Quan returned to China, he was 51 years old. At that time, the Qing Empire had been fixed for a hundred years, the political situation was stable, the people's hearts were stable, the economy was prosperous, and it entered an unprecedented prosperous era. His reputation was greatly enhanced, and when it reached the capital, the imperial court ordered Shen Quan to paint a tribute. During his stay in Japan, his paintings were also deeply appreciated by the powerful General Tokugawa Yoshimune, and many Japanese painters learned from him, and the "Nanhua School" that caused a sensation in the government and the public was the school founded by Shen Quan and crowned with his trumpet, and its painting school had a profound influence on the painting style of the late Edo period in Japan, and spread to all of Japan, such as the Southern School, the Maruyama Shijo School, and the Foreign School of Painting. Shen Quan was elected by the famous Japanese painter Maruyama Yingju as the "First Imported Painter".
In the seventh year of Qianlong (1742), Shen Quan's "The Meaning of the Palace of Lady Huarui" was well received, ushering in the peak of his creation. Shen Quan traveled to Japan for two years and broke through his painting skills. Japan also respects Confucianism exclusively, with Confucianism as the mainstream. Shen Quan's painting style coincides with this proposition. Through the natural and dexterous composition method, Shen Quan makes the whole picture full of vitality, with the help of the depiction of various objects of nature, integrates his own perception of painting art, and then recreates painting. He pays attention to both brushwork and freehand at the same time, and his paintings have both delicate pen and ink techniques and rich and colorful ink, from heavy to light pen techniques, which are neat and clean and straight. It can be seen that Shen Quan's brushwork is relatively fine, and his paintings pursue realistic shapes and fully depict the texture and characteristics of animals.
In addition to creating "Lady Huarui Palace Words and Meanings" for the court, Shen Quan also successively created many paintings of auspicious allegories for the court, so Shen Quan and his disciple Tong Heng were known as court painters in the history of Chinese painting. In his later years, Shen Quan lived in Suzhou and devoted himself tirelessly to the study of the art of calligraphy and painting, and in the twenty-seventh year of Qianlong (1762), the 81-year-old Shen Quan was also able to compose "Flowers and Birds". In this year, Shen Quan died. His son Shen Tianjun entered the New City of Nanping Province, kept filial piety for three years, and inherited his painting business. Shen Quan's only disciple, Tong Heng, left the Shen mansion to become a monk at The Ming Yin Monastery in Xinshi, where he spent his spare time painting for the rest of his life.
Flower and bird painting covers a wide range, as long as it is based on animals and plants in nature, it can be called flower and bird painting. Relatively speaking, the technique of flower and bird painting is relatively simple, and it is very fast to start, but the world's requirements for flower and bird painting works are also extremely high, and the extremely beautiful and divine shape are only the basic requirements for the painting of flowers and birds with brush strokes, and the requirements for freehand flowers and birds are even more.
Shen Quan dedicated his life to the cause of painting, and on the basis of inheriting the tradition of the Academy, he created the powerful Nanping School of Painting, which was unique in Jiangnan at that time, and there were poems that gave it a high evaluation of "Jiangnan masters who are the first, Wu Xing Shen sheng is unmatched." Shen Quan belongs to the folk painter, does not have a broader vision, may not really understand the art of Western painting, he may only be able to contact the elements of Chinese painting influenced by Western painting, or the creation techniques of Western painting obtained in the exchange with painters.
After Shen Quan went to Japan, he learned the Western painting creation technique with novelty and corresponding expressive effect, he abandoned the line in many creations, and replaced it with the chiaroscuro method, forming a unique "boneless" style, through the embellishment of the trajectory, there is a state of ink-color fusion, producing a light color rendering effect, showing vivid, flexible and natural characteristics, drawing on the Song Dynasty Xu Chongsi's Yibi sketching technique, while referring to the Mingren's ethereal style, in the layout arrangement, expression techniques and artistic conveyance are quite Lu Ji's painting legacy.
Shen Quan set up a beautiful color, exquisite workmanship, rich color, and extremely ingenious in constructing beams. The secret of painting characters. Pay attention to realism, the painting style is rigorous and meticulous, and the shape is accurate and vivid.
Shen Quan's works include: "Wulun Tu", "Liuyin Frightening Bird", "Autumn Flower Tanuki Nu Tu", "Pan Peach Double Pheasant Figure", "Song Crane Diagram", "Plum Blossom Ribbon Diagram", "Crane Group Diagram", "Songlu Diagram" and so on. The "Double Crane Diagram" made at the age of 78, full of composition and strong penmanship, is known as a masterpiece of his later years.
Lu Xiuhui has a poem "Song for Shen Quannan" that praises:
The painting is ten thousand silks, and the writing is like a thousand hanging.
The pine crane has nothing, and the birds are late.
In the distance, the water of Ming Ji is reflected, and the lonely piano is completely clear.
Ting Zhou was in difficulty, and Pu Pu was deep in Pitang.
Bring in new methods, and pick up old techniques.
Yerba Buena yunxia qi, business sound flying dragon pong.