What are the four famous monks, Yuan Ji monks, famous for?

The Four Famous Monks refer to the four monks who were good at painting in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, especially landscape painting. They were grouped together and collectively known as the "Four Great Monks" (四大 Monks).

Yuan Ji was one of the four great monks, born in 1642 AD, died in 1718 AD, a native of Quanzhou, Guangxi, a member of the Zhu Ming royal family, whose original name was Zhu Ruoji, and who was ordained as a monk.

Yuan Ji was a descendant of Zhu Shouqian, the king of Mingjingjiang, with noble blood, and should have lived a life of brocade and jade food. Even if the family is in the middle of the road, it will not be able to become a monk. But in the end, it was still the helpless situation and forced to become a monk.

The era in which Yuan Ji lived coincided with the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty. In the last years of the Ming Dynasty, the government was corrupt, the Jurchens in the north rose rapidly, and through the efforts of nurhaci and huang taiji, the transition from the Later Jin to the Qing Dynasty was already extremely large. The Jurchens are a steppe nation, which can also be called a horse people, with a strong folk style and explosive combat effectiveness. In the early years, the Jurchen clans were scattered, and the power could not be gathered to deter the Ming Dynasty. But after Nurhaci unified the Jurchen tribes and twisted the scattered Jurchen tribes into a hemp, the power of the explosion was terrifying.

Although the Ming Dynasty did not emphasize literature and light military force as the Song Dynasty, in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, it made the country chaotic because of the successive emergence of several rulers who were not suitable for being emperors. What carpenter emperor, the emperor of the carpenter, because he was not interested in governing the country, thus making the power fall by the way, the traitors in charge, and the eunuch dictatorship. The Ming Dynasty, which was in political chaos and declining in national strength, naturally lost to the Qing Dynasty, which was in the ascending stage.

After the Chongzhen Emperor of the Ming Dynasty hanged himself, Wu Sangui opened shanhaiguan and released the Qing army into the customs, placing the central plains directly in front of the Qing government. The Jurchen cavalry roared down and quickly conquered everywhere. Because Zhu Ruoji was a descendant of the Zhu Ming Dynasty, he was naturally hunted down and killed by the Qing army. He fled with his father, who eventually died in the process of fleeing, when he was only five years old and was finally saved by becoming a monk.

After becoming a monk, Zhu Ruoji's dharma name was Yuan Ji,Yi Zuo Yuan Ji ,小字阿長, Zi Shi Tao ,号大涤子. In addition to reciting Buddhist scriptures, he also began to learn painting. In the early years, Yuan Ji traveled to the north and south of the motherland, and the famous mountains around Anhui and Anhui were the objects of his observation.

It's like having a good idea, before painting landscapes, you must have landscapes in your heart. With the careful observation of landscapes in various places, Yuan Ji's painting level soared all the way, grew rapidly, and eventually became a famous landscape painter.

In middle age, Yuan Ji lived in Nanjing, and twice received the holy driver in Yangzhou. Because he made many landscape paintings, when he was summoned by the emperor, he would also serve excellent works, and he could always get the praise of the emperor.

His Holiness the Blind One, who called himself a bitter melon monk, lived in the Yangzhou area and had close contacts with the local upper class. At that time, the upper class people were proud to collect the paintings of the original Jizhi. It can be said that at this time, Yuan Ji's painting level has reached its peak and is the most mature stage.

Yuan Ji's own landscape, orchid bamboo, figures, flowers and fruits paintings are very outstanding, the most wonderful of which is of course landscape painting. In addition to leaving many pedestals, such as "Poetry Album", "Huangshan Eight Victory Map", "Plum Bamboo Double Qing Map", "Banana Jutu" and so on. Yuan Ji also put forward The painting theories of Reiser's "pen and ink when the times" and "borrowing the past to open up the present", which made a certain contribution to the development of Chinese painting art.