Chen Ming (陈枚), courtesy name Zaidong (字載東), was a native of Lou County, Songjiang Province (present-day Songjiang, Shanghai) in his later years. He was a court painter of the Yongzheng and Qianlong dynasties, born around the thirty-third year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1694), died in the tenth year of Qianlong (1745), he began to serve in the inner court from the fourth year of Yongzheng (1726), and served as the head of the internal affairs office, Wailang, and served in the palace for about seventeen years.
From an early age, Chen Mei was immersed in calligraphy and painting and cultivated a profound artistic literacy. In the last years of the Kangxi Dynasty, Chen Tong's painting skills gradually matured, and he went north to the capital to seek fame, and Chen Ming also followed. The two became acquainted with Chen Shan, a painter working in Beijing, and Chen Tong hoped that his younger brother Chen Mei could worship him as a teacher, but Chen Mei only wanted to become a family through his own efforts, so he could not close all day and devoted himself to the study of calligraphy and painting.
One day, Chen Shan saw Chen Ming's works and praised them greatly, and the two became friends of Mo Rebellion. Chen Mei was also able to enter the court as a painter because of Chen Shan's relationship and serve in the palace. After Chen Mei entered the palace, he was greatly valued by the Yongzheng Emperor. During his tenure, he painted a large number of works, but because these works were very exquisite and meticulous, he overused his eyes and lost his eyesight and left the court to return to the south. Chen Ming's main works include "Wan Fu Lai Chao Tu", "Late Crow Returning to the Forest", "Yueman Qingyou Atlas" and "Landscape Pavilion Atlas" and other works.
His "Landscape pavilion atlas" has 12 pages, colored on silk, each page is 31 centimeters long and 25.3 centimeters wide, and it is self-titled "Chen Mei Gong Painting", according to his inscription "Gong Painting", it can be known that this set of works should be his works after entering the palace. This album shows the architecture and mountain scenery of the Yuanmingyuan, which is very meticulous and has the three-dimensional feeling of Western painting, which is obviously influenced by Western painting.
This set of albums does not seem to be much different from traditional landscapes, with the style of Song Dynasty courtyard paintings, but if you look closely, you can find that this set of albums is more scientific and more realistic. This set of works can be seen to be influenced by Lang Shining, using some Western perspective methods, showing the three-dimensional sense of the object, and at the same time showing the perfect combination of the fusion of Chinese and Western architecture and palace gardens in the Yuanmingyuan.
In 1860, the British and French troops destroyed the Yuanmingyuan, so the artistic value and historical value of this set of albums are even more precious, providing us with certain historical evidence for understanding the scene of the Yuanmingyuan at that time.