Deqing Humanities 丨 Seiko Elegance, Tao Li Fangxin - Shen Quan and his Nan apple painting school

Shen Quan and his people

　　Shen Quan (1682-1762 later) [Qing] character Hengzhi, Hengzhai, Nanping, Nanping, Nanping, Zhejiang, Deqing City, Zhejiang. Workers write flowers and feathers, set colors beautifully, and paint characters without passing on the secret. Yongzheng was hired to Japan in the seventh year (1729) and lived in Nagasaki for three years, which had a great influence on the Japanese painting world.

　　Shen Quan was born in the twenty-first year of the Qing Kangxi Dynasty (1682), and when he was young, due to his family's poverty, he learned handicrafts such as paper flowers and paper houses with his father. Later, his father took Shen Quan to Pinghu, Zhejiang, where he worshipped the flower and bird painter Hu Mei (Zi Feitao, Wanshan, also known as Qiu Xue, Zhejiang Pinghuren) as a teacher and disciple. Until he was about 20 years old, he specialized in painting and made a living from it. From the beginning of the Qing Dynasty to the Qianlong period, the styles of flower and bird painting were diverse, including the ink painting school represented by bada shan and Shi Tao, the Changzhou Yun school represented by Yun Shouping, the finger painting school represented by Gao Qipei, and the new body painting school represented by Lang Shining. Shen Quan's painting style is different from the above-mentioned painting styles, but he also absorbs the strengths of all the families, "the best of the ancient law is adopted, the desperation is followed, the poor are changed, the insufficient are increased, and the Western can be absorbed." In terms of color modeling, the Huang Zhen sketching method and the recent Lü Ji painting method in the five dynasties of the Yuanzong Dynasty are good at painting flowers and animals, paying attention to realism, the painting style is rigorous and meticulous, the shape is accurate and vivid, the workmanship is exquisite, the color is rich, and the ingenuity of the beam is extremely ingenious. The composition is influenced by Ma Yuan and Xia Gui, and the scene is taken in the corner, with few corners and a slight corner, that is, flowers and birds and landscapes are integrated, and the artistic conception is far away.

　　During the Yongzheng period, after Shen Quan's painting "Hundred Horse Diagrams" flowed into the Japanese Imperial Palace, the Japanese king was particularly fond of it, so he sent envoys to China to find Shen Quan. According to relevant Japanese historical records, in the ninth year of Qing Yongzheng (1731), Shen Quan was hired by Japan to accompany more than a dozen disciples to Nagasaki, and soon opened a painting academy to teach Chinese flower and bird techniques, which lasted 3 years. His painting style is highly respected by the Japanese, forming the "Nanping School" sketches, which have a great influence on the Japanese painting world. The Japanese painting homeland of Yamayoju praised it as "the first imported painter", and Shen Quan can be said to be a major contributor to promoting the exchange of chinese and Japanese paintings.

　　Shen Quan was diligent in painting all his life, and there are many surviving works, according to the statistics of relevant professional books, a total of 366 surviving works. For example, the representative works "Fenghou Tu", "Song Crane Diagram", and "Old Tree Squatting Eagle Diagram" are hidden in the Palace Museum, "Qi DehongJiTu" axis is stored in the Guangdong Provincial Museum, "Double Deer Diagram" and "Plum Blossom Ribbon Diagram" are hidden in the Nanjing Museum, "Biwuqi Phoenix Diagram" and "Bailu Bee Monkey Diagram" are hidden in the Suzhou Municipal Museum, "Qiutong Flock Chicken Diagram" is hidden in the Shanghai Cultural Relics Store, "Golden Rooster Ribbon Diagram" and "Happy News Three TaiTu" are hidden in the Zhejiang Provincial Museum, "Peacock Diagram" is hidden in the Wuxi Museum, and so on. The retention of so many masterpieces is precisely to confirm the praise and evaluation of the flower and bird industry at that time for its "Jiangnan masters who are the first, Wu Xingshen is unmatched in life".

The Southern Apple School

　　Shen Quan actively taught the Nanping style flower and bird technique during his lifetime, and had many disciples, according to the "Shen Quan Research", there were Shen Tianhua, Tong Heng, Wu Qi, Wang Qing, Lu Renxin, Zheng Pei, Gao Jun, Gao Qian, Wang Guofeng and others in China. According to The historical records of Japanese art, Japan has its disciples or re-disciples such as Xiong Fei, Ekoshi Xiupu, Tsurutei, Mamura Feizhan, Kurokawa Kametama, Watanabe Huashan, Andetsu Mura, Song Zishi (i.e., Nanmoto Snow Creek), Kenbe Ayazu and others. Shen Quan's disciples continued to inherit and spread Shen style painting, and even after a hundred years, many painters were still privately practicing their painting skills, and gradually formed and strengthened the Nanping School of painting in the Chinese and Japanese painting circles. Guangde Fresh Town has successively emerged such as Yu Yingfan, Shen Chiran, Chen Fen, Chen Ruzhen, Chen Yuzhen, Tan Deshou and other calligraphers and painters, painting skills inherited, painting art stretched out, at that time enough to dazzle Jiangnan. The representative members of the Shen Quan Nanping School of Painting are:

　　Shen Tianjun [Qing] character driving Qian, Shi Geng, a native of Xinshi Town, Deqing County, Zhejiang, Shen Quan's nephew, birth and death year unknown. Good flowers, feathers, walking animals, painting its family law. With a neat pen, brilliant color, hook writing and use, quite business. Unfortunately, the years are not eternal, so there are very few works circulated.

Tong Heng [Qing] Zi Hired Third, No. Yuki, a native of Xinshi Town, Deqing County, Zhejiang Province, a disciple of Shen Quan, whose year of birth and death is unknown. He is good at painting flowers, feathers, and animals, especially horses. Deer, pine, crane, pen and ink workmanship, lifelike form, lifelike, deep is the shape of the master god, almost chaotic. At that time, the Japanese people cherished it.

　　Wu Qi [Qing] Zi Zhizhi, a native of Xinshi Town, Deqing County, Zhejiang, a disciple of Shen Quan, was born and died in an unknown year. Good at painting loose, happy to make large, brush indulgent, calm and cheerful, strange and strange, ink color, strange style, self-appearance.

　　Gao Jun [Qing] Ji Ting, a native of Zhejiang, a disciple of Shen Quan, is good at painting. In the seventh year of Yongzheng, he traveled with his teacher to Nagasaki, Japan. Representative works: "Autumn Tamarind White Head".

　　Gao Qian [Qing] Tongxiang Chongde, Zhejiang, zi qichang, ping'an, alias Hanshan, Shen Quan's disciple, good painting, Yongzheng went to Nagasaki, Japan with his teacher for seven years.

　　Zheng Pei [Qing] Character ShanRu, No. Gu Ting, A native of Cangxi, a Jiangsu Danyang, and later followed his division to Japan.

Appreciation of works

As the land of Shen Quan's Sangzi, the Deqing Museum has a number of paintings handed down from generation to generation by Shen Quan and his disciples, among which Shen Quan's "Tong yin cat drama", "Songzhu Double Deer Diagram", "Flower and Bird Axis", and Tong Heng's "Double Horse Diagram" have regained their vitality after several years of rescue restoration. Some of them have been selected for a brief introduction.

　　Shen QuanTong Yin Cat Drama On Paper, Color, Length 159 cm, Width 89 Cm. This axis depicts the lake stone on the slope of autumn, the decaying bush chrysanthemum, the two cats have different looks, one of them perches on the lake stone, looking down below; its one stands on the slope, looking up and down, looking up and down, interesting. The whole painting is dynamic and static, the atmosphere is vivid, the color layers are rich, and the color is beautiful. In terms of brushwork, it is written with a pen and a work belt, a sycamore leaf and a chrysanthemum leaf are painted with a boneless method, a light ink double hook autumn chrysanthemum is used, the lake stone is rubbed with light ink, thick ink dot moss, and the double cat painting method is fine and moist, realistic and vivid, full of fun. There is a paragraph in the left book: "Gengzi Sanqiu was written in Shen Quan, the first mountain of the East Lake", that is, in the fifty-ninth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1720), which was composed by Shen Quan when he was forty-three years old. 钤印 "Shen Quan's Seal" (白文方印), "南蘋氏" (朱文方印), "Skill is flat and lazy is true" (白文方印).

　　Shen Quan Songyue Diagram on paper, ink, length 87.3 cm, width 113.3 cm. This painting takes the pine tree as the main body, the ancient pine branches are curved, obliquely through the upper and lower parts of the picture, it seems to be broken and the meaning is continuous, and the pine crown is lined with a bright moon, if looming, the composition is quite meaningful. Reading the whole work, the picture layout is appropriate, dense and elegant, the ink color is smooth, the pen is vigorous, and the pine tree is written in an elegant and vigorous posture. According to the "Qianlong Yihai New Summer Seventy-four Old Man Shen Quan wrote", that is, qianlong twenty years (1755), it can be seen that this painting was made by Shen Quan in his later years when he was skilled in technique, the pen is old and spicy, the composition is simple but rich, showing the interest of canghun estrangement. There are also plutonium prints "Heng Zhai" in baiwen fangyin, "seal of Shen Quan" in baiwen fangyin, "Nan Apple clan" in Zhu wenfangyin, and baiwen fangyin "insufficient in old learning". Among them, the idle words of "insufficient learning to the old" reflect Shen Quan's continuous improvement in artistic creation, which is a portrayal of his spirit of hard work and single-mindedness. Shen Quan has painted very few pine drawings, and in the Kobe City Museum in Japan, there are facsimiles of the pine diagrams drawn by Shen Quan in the year of decay (1731) when Shen Quan lived in Japan, and the composition and techniques of the two are relatively similar. In Shen Quan's painting, calligraphy and seal engraving art, the flowers, birds and animals are the most outstanding, according to this "Songyue Map", it can be seen that Shen Quan's ink painting technique is also very exquisite.

　　Shen Quan Pine Bamboo Double Deer Diagram On paper, color, length 201 cm, width 113 cm. This painting takes the auspicious meaning of "Ballantine Food", which is lined with pine bamboo and double deer as the main body. Ancient pines are vigorous, dead vines are coiled, bamboo leaves are lush, female deer crouch on the rocks, and male deer stand and look back at their partners. The double deer are realistic in form and detailed in rendering, especially the delicate fur blending and the deer eye outline. Pine trees depict a thick atmosphere, pine needles are neatly depicted and supplemented with flower blue as a lining, and when the pen is carried, it is outlined and rubbed and used to express the tall and upright of the loose trunk. The whole painting is full of composition, the pen tension is moderate, the color is elegant, thick and vulgar, light and not thin. On the work, Zhu Wenfang sealed "The Seal of Shen Quan", Bai Wen ChangFang Seal "Family Residence in Yubuxi, Nannan", and the right side signed "Qianlong Bingzi □ Qiu Nanping Shen Quan", of which four characters have been extinguished, but according to the remaining inkblots, it can still be inferred that this painting was made in qianlong in the twenty-first year (1756), which was made in his later years when his skills were mature, and his technique was perfect and quite powerful.

　　Shen Quan Flower bird shaft paper, color, length 174 cm, width 92 cm. Although this axis is relatively damaged, the main picture is still clear and recognizable, the picture is pigmented, and the artistic conception is quaint. The leaves are falling in the middle of autumn, the grass hibiscus competes to show its face, and the grass and stones at the roots of the trees hug each other. In the meantime, there are many pairs of mountain birds, a pair of ribbons perched on the sycamore branches, as if in dialogue, echoing each other; where the autumn flowers bloom, the picture is fixed at the moment when the quail flutters its wings overlooking the hibiscus; four pairs of quails are staggered and distributed between the grasses, with different forms and interesting. There is a paragraph record: "Qianlong Ji Ji Zhongchun Nan apple Shen Quan wrote when he was seventy and eight", which is also a powerful work for his later years. Autumn tong, Xuancao and other painting methods are freehand, smooth brush strokes, not bound by the scene, writing leaves with no bones, light color and light halo flowers, sparse and elegant; bird and bird painting method is also neat and meticulous, but the brushwork even to the realm of pure fire, the painted objects are both godly, fresh and flexible, and very interesting. The whole painting is either rough and freehand, or neat and delicate, or dry and dignified, or moist and flowing, and the brush painting method written with part-time work is fully exerted, which shows the proficiency and mastery of his painting skills in his later years. In the painting, the white text square seal "The Seal of The Subject", the white text square seal "Nan Apple".

　　Shen Quan finger painting on paper, ink, length 33 cm, width 59 cm. This finger painting is embedded in a seven-digging work, located in the upper left corner of the seven calligraphy and painting sketches, the picture is simple, using water and ink to lightly paint a corner of the cold pond, a residual lotus plant, thick fresh water ink complement each other, the modeling lines are muddy, and the cursory strokes are also quite meaningful. On the right side, "Heng Zhai finger painting in the West Lake Xiaozhu", next to the "Seal of Shen Quan" White Text Square Seal, "South Commentary" Zhu Wen Square Seal each.

　　Shen Tianhua Autumn Banana Step Crane Diagram On paper, color, length 161 cm, width 88 cm. The theme of the work is deciduous autumn plantains and white cranes foraging for ganoderma lucidum, and the mountain stones, grasses and flowers are used as a background, which means "auspicious longevity". Basho ink outlines pale color dyeing, mountain stone painting is full of ink and supplemented with thick ink dot moss, and the white crane shape is accurate and vivid, reflecting the painter's exquisite pen and ink and good skills, quite his teacher's brushwork charm. On the right side of the painting, there is the paragraph "Qianlong Yan has driven a thousand Shen Tianjun in the west of Zhejiang", and the next two seals are "Shen Tianjun Seal" and "Driving Qian".

　　Tong Heng Double Horse Figure Silk, color, length 114 cm, width 40 cm. The picture takes ancient trees and double horses as the main body, supplemented by lake stones and autumn grass, ancient trees and vigorous, double horses snuggled and standing, lake stones standing, autumn grass long. The painted trees, stones and slopes are dignified, elegant and clean; the double horse line is delicately depicted, and the strength is beautiful. The whole painting has both shapes and spirits, vivid intentions, and the layout, coloring, and pen are similar to his master's "Hanlin Wild Horse Scroll" (now in Japan) of "Song Xue (Zhao Mengfu)". The right middle section is signed "Tong Heng", the lower section is "Tong Heng" Bai Wen Fang Yin and the "Hired Three Clans" Zhu Wen Fang Yin.

　　Wu Qi Pine Tree Double Finch Diagram on paper, ink, length 167 cm, width 87 cm. The work depicts a dangerous pine on the edge of a cliff, with straight branches hanging down, a curved and vigorous, and a pair of standing up and down among the pine branches. The dried branches of the pine are light ink hooked, the focus of thick ink, quaint and thick; the workmanship is freehand, vivid, and deeply rooted in the legend of his teacher. On the right, it is signed "Supplement Wu Qi", and the next is "Seal of Qi" Zhu WenfangYin.

　　Conclusion: Shen Quan's painting occupies a special position in the history of Chinese flower and bird painting, and the contribution of Shen Quan and his Nan apple painting school to the entire Middle and Late Qing Dynasty Chinese painting, especially flower and bird painting, cannot be underestimated, and its realistic techniques also played a certain role in the spread of Western painting at that time. During his visit to Japan, he had a profound influence on the Japanese painting world and was an important representative figure in promoting the exchange of calligraphy and painting between China and Japan. These are important enough for those of us who will be able to pay attention to them.

Source: Deqing Shizhi Network

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