Jiang Song (蒋嵩), courtesy name Sansong (三松), was a native of Jiangning (present-day Nanjing, Jiangsu). The year of birth and death is unknown, but the artistic activities are around Chenghua and Jiajing. Good at painting landscape figures, Painting Fa Zong Wu Wei, is one of the famous masters of the Zhejiang School. Like to use scorched ink dry pen, but also good use of light ink, thick and light, blended in, such as "Fishing Boat Reading Map", mountain stones mostly use large pieces of wet ink, quite powerful, although the scale of the landscape, but the clouds steaming fog change, smoke xia touching the eye. Yigong figures, along with Zheng Wenlin, Zhong Li, Zhang Lu, etc., are all famous masters of the late Zhejiang School. And because of their extravagant writing and more than one degree of momentum, they were once ridiculed by the Wu Pai as "crazy cults."
Jiang Song (Old Legend Xia Jue) Shanshui, collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei
The signature on a painting is an objective criterion for judging the author of a painting, but evidence can also be lost, especially when the signature contradicts the style of the painting. Like this vertical axis of "Landscape and Water", the lower left of the painting has the signature of "Chen Xia Jue".
Signed by "Chen Xia Gui"
However, the style of this painting is too crude to conform to Xia Jue and his time, which makes people suspect that such a signature may be a later counterfeit. In the upper right corner of the painting, a rectangular stain appears, and the silk has obvious traces of being cut, perhaps this is the original signature, which was deliberately cut.
Traces of being cut
The author who wants to reveal this painting can only compare it through the form and style of the picture. From large areas of baked stones, leaves randomly stained with wet ink, and translucent paper-cut distant mountains, these specific features, step by step, narrowed down the scope and searched for authors.
After comparison, on another piece of Jiang Song's "Landscape and Water" map, we see the same stones, leaves and distant mountains, so we can confirm that this painting, which is said to be Xia Jue, should be from Jiang Song's handwriting. In the upper right corner of this painting of Jiang Song, there is a signature from the painter, signed "Sansong", and stamped with two seals. Whether it is the position of the print or the size of the print, it is a trace of the split with this rectangle.
Signature "Sansong"
"Zhong Li" and "Jiang Song", they were the Painters of the Zhejiang School or the Court of the Ming Dynasty, because the style was very close to the Southern Song Dynasty's "Xia Jue" and "Ma Yuan", so when the antique dealers who did not xiao made fake paintings, they changed the names of their paintings to the names of these Song Dynasty masters. In fact, a large proportion of the works that are currently circulating "Ma Yuan" or "Xia Jue" are the works of this group of Painters of the Zhejiang School of the Ming Dynasty, known as "Mad Cult".
Zhong Li and Jiang Song, the two "disappearing names", represent a group of forgotten Zhejiang painters. Under the perseverance of modern scholars, more and more paintings have regained their original identity. At the time of the birth of these works, they may be regarded as proud masterpieces, or they may be criticized by thousands of people. However, in modern times, each painting is regarded as a manifestation of the artist's talent, re-recognized by the audience, and also reveals the rich and diverse artistic features of Ming Dynasty painting for us.