Collection Appreciation - Cha Shibiao's "Landscape Map"

At the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, a painting group was active in the Huizhou area of Anhui Province. They take nature as a teacher and pursue the artistic effect of "plain and innocent", and the members are Cha Shibiao, Hongren, Wang Zhirui, and Sun Yi. Because the area around Huizhou was called "Xin'an County" in ancient times, the history of painting referred to this group as the "Four Houses of Xin'an". The four people were either Xiuning people or had close relations with Xiuning, so people called Xiuning Haiyang and called it "Haiyang Four Families".

Cha Shibiao (1615-1698), zi erzhan ( ) , was a native of Xiuning , Anhui Province. He was a talent at the end of the Ming Dynasty, working on poetry, calligraphy and painting, and especially good at painting landscapes. His landscape paintings were influenced by the "Four Families of the Yuan Dynasty", the "Wumen School" and Dong Qichang. He made friends with Hongren, Zheng Zhongguang, Wang Shigu, Yun Nantian and others, learned from each other, studied painting, and at the same time went deep into the water of Anhui Mountain to absorb natural nutrients. Because of this, his landscape paintings present the characteristics of eclecticism and diversity. His mountains and rivers are changeable, and his pen and ink are evacuated and clear. In the Qing Dynasty, Zhang Geng praised Cha Shibiao's work as an yipin in the "National Dynasty Painting Record".

Cha Shibiao's "Landscape Map" (see above) is ink and paper, 185 cm in length and 93 cm in width, and is now in the Jinan Museum. The painter inscribed himself in the upper left of the picture: "Thousands of peaks and valleys are sunny and good, only the high people are willing to return." Chash Biao. "钤"Chash Mark Seal" White Text Square Seal, "Mei Ren Clan One Character Two Zhan" Zhu Wen Square Seal. This work shows the mountain scenery of southern Anhui with a strong autumn mood. In the picture, several sparse trees on PinghuZhouzhu stand in jagged and echo each other, and a stone road through the stream connects the two shazhus. On the stone road, a man dressed in cloth was walking forward with a staff. Not far from it, there are grass pavilions on the shore and greenery. On the other side of the grass pavilion is a rolling mountain with a wooded col and a well-organized manor house. In terms of realm, this work shows the charm and spiritual temperament of Ni Zhan's landscape and water, and at the same time, it is different from the overly dull style of Ni Zhan's works, which can be described as simple but not sparse, clean and deep. In terms of painting method, the painter takes Ni Zhan's brushwork as the keynote, and integrates a number of brushwork, painting mountain stones and Shazhu Zhujiao methods, including Huang Gongwang's Phi Ma Jiao, Wang Meng's Xie Suo, and Shen Shitian and Dong Qichang's dry wet loose brushes. This method is refined and simplified, and there are many blank spaces between the mountains and hills. The distant peaks are painted in a touch of light ink, which looks wide and far-reaching. The painter painted the tree with the brush meaning of Ni Zhan, outlined with a wet pen, and rubbed with a dry brush, so that the trees revealed a sense of beauty in the old age. The whole picture is based on plain innocence, highlighting the characteristics of vertical and horizontal and elegant evacuation.

The reason why Cha Shibiao's works are praised by Zhang Geng as yipin is mainly because he caters to the literati painting ideas advocated by Dong Qichang and strives to reflect the characteristics of plainness and innocence in art. This "Landscape Map" better reflects the bland and naïve creative concept. This work appears natural and simple, light and peaceful, with little sense of carving and implicit academic tendencies. The core of bland innocence is "light", and because of "light", it naturally shows a sense of "innocence". The first to advocate "light" is the Taoist philosophical concept. Lao Tzu once said, "The outlet of the Tao is tasteless, it is not enough to see, it is not enough to hear, and it is indispensable to use it." "'Tastelessness' is the root of things." Tasteless" is "light". And it was the Song Dynasty Mi Fu who introduced bland innocence into the theory of painting creation. When he commented on dongyuan of the five generations of southern Tang in the "History of Painting", he said: "Dong Yuan is plain and naïve, and Tang has no such product, on Bi Hong. In the modern world, God's character is high and incomparable. He went on to say that the meaning of "plain and innocent" is that "the peaks are haunted, the clouds are obscure, and they are innocent without pretending to be funny." The color is lush, the branches are strong, and the salty has business. Xiqiao Yupu, Zhouzhu covered, a piece of Jiangnan also. It can be seen that "plain and naïve" requires painters to learn from nature and show natural features. Cha Shibiao's "Landscape Map" presents this characteristic of "peaks and peaks", "lush blues" and "hidden continents", and vividly and without a sense of carving the natural beauty of "thousands of peaks and valleys and good lights".

The late Ming Dynasty painting world is like a pool of stagnant water, and many works are not only full of craftsmanship and commercial atmosphere, but also the wind of imitation is overflowing. Under such circumstances, it takes a lot of courage for the "Four Families of Xin'an" headed by Cha Shibiao to dare to break through The Old Habits, oppose the imitation of the ancients, and advocate the natural and plain and naïve aesthetic orientation of the teacher's method. "Light" is a mysterious and transcendent realm that cannot be achieved by arduous skill training alone. In order for the work to show the aesthetic conception of "lightness", the painter must be indifferent to fame and fortune and transcend the world. The essence of "light" is nature, there is no norm to rely on, which requires the painter to change and be new in his creation. Therefore, only by breaking through the rigid ancient atmosphere and getting rid of the strong commercial atmosphere can the painter enter nature and gain a new life. Looking at Cha Shibiao's life path, it can be seen that the basic elements of his works conforming to "lightness" are the reflection of his cultivation and life pursuits. From this "Landscape Map" axis, it is not difficult to see the "plain and naïve" connotation of Cha Shibiao. The sand trees, streams and streams, grass pavilion manors, pinghu ghostly colors, peaks and peaks, gangfu, and Qinglan Yunxiu depicted by the painter in the picture all come from nature, "not pretending to be interesting", without any taste of carving and dressing, appearing vibrant, just right to show the cultural landscape of southern Anhui that "thousands of peaks and valleys are sunny and good, only high people can return to it".

——Transferred from China Painting and Calligraphy