In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the Wumen school represented by Shen Zhou and Wen Zhengming inherited the tradition of Song and Yuan literati painting and grew stronger. They inherited and developed the painting traditions of yuanren such as pen and ink interest and "morale" and "Yige", and bred a unique landscape painting style in the Suzhou painting world. Lu Zhi was a representative painter of the Wumen School after Wen Zhengming. Lu Zhi (1496-1576), zi shuping, bao shanzi, a native of Suzhou, Jiangsu, lived in Baoshan, Taihu Lake. He came from a family of squires, behaved well, honored the high church, and regarded money as a pawn. According to legend, Lu Zhi once angrily refused to ask him for paintings directly with money. In his view, "I know, not for poverty." From this, his literati spirit of not admiring fame and not loving money can be seen. In his later years, he lived in seclusion in the Zhili Mountains in the south of Suzhou.
Lu Zhi studied calligraphy and painting with Zhu Yunming and Wen Zhengming. Wang Shizhen commented on Lu Zhi: "His study of Danqing is to make sure that he has a strange qi in his chest in order to fight with the ancients. A good name for a while, a few with Mr. Wen. "Lu Zhi painted landscapes with scorched ink rubbing, so that the picture revealed a sharp wind bone. His flower and bird paintings are interesting in both brushwork and freehand, with beautiful dots and delicate colors. Together with Chen Chun and Zhou Zhimian, he painted flowers and birds for the middle and late Ming Dynasty. Ming Dynasty painters also spoke highly of Lu Zhi's flower and bird paintings. For the present world, his landscape paintings are more well-known than his flower and bird paintings. The volume "Poetic Landscapes of the Tang Dynasty", now in the Suzhou Museum, is a typical work of Lu Zhi's combination of flowers, birds and landscapes. The album is 27.6 cm in length and 26.3 cm in width, 32.5 cm in length and 62.8 cm in width, which was composed by Lu Shi when he was 61 years old. This volume has a total of ten openings, each opening is painted with a tang dynasty poem, or landscape, or figure, or bird, and can be set at will in spring, summer, autumn and winter. The painter uses a strong brush and a bright color, can not be stuck in the teacher's method, does not indulge in the chest, and has a personality in the choice. Here's an overview of four of them.
The painter inscribed in the upper right corner of the picture: "Stop and sit in love with the maple forest at night, and the frost leaves are red in February flowers." This sentence comes from the poem "Mountain Walk" by Du Mu in the Tang Dynasty. In the poem, the poet shows the colorful autumn colors of the mountains and forests. In the painting, Lu Zhi also presents the viewer with the autumn scenery of the sky above the mountain stream clouds and the forest in the valley. The stone steps of Akiyama appear at the lower end of the picture, providing the viewer with a path to the scenery. Climb up the stone steps and surrounded by mountains and rocks. A child stopped and waited, and the maple forest was soaked around it. The white-clad gentleman sat on the edge of the cliff and looked up at the clouds. When Lu Zhi outlined trees and stones and mountains, he made good use of the expression method of polyline continuum, that is, taking shapes with polylines. In this work, he outlines the contours of the mountain stones with folded lines and rubs them with a dry brush, and paints the distant mountains with pastel thin casts, so that the picture presents an ethereal and open-minded atmosphere.
Figure 1
The inscription in Figure 2 is "Ke tou Ji Ji is standing under the long pine, and the white eye looks at him in the world" is from Wang Wei's "Passing the Cui Priest Xingzong LinTing" by Wang Wei of the Tang Dynasty. The figure in the painting is none other than Cui Xingzong, Wang Wei's younger brother. In the painting, the painter reproduced the characters of "Ko tou" (without a crown hat, with his hair in a bun) and a jiju (sitting with his feet extended) in the poem. The virgin Is of high moral character and is an otherworldly hermit. He is depicted wearing a short scarlet shirt and sitting barefoot under a long pine. Through the grasp of the personality of the character, the painter vividly depicts the different customs of cui.
Figure 2
The inscription of figure 3 is "Baisha Cuizhu River Village Twilight, Sending Chaimen Moon Color New" from Du Fu's "Southern Neighbor" in the Tang Dynasty. The painter depicts the scenes in the poems. In the picture, it is late, and the white sand beach and the verdant bamboo forest by the river are gradually shrouded in night. The owner bid farewell to his friends outside the firewood gate, when a bright moon had just risen. In this painting, the painter still uses the polyline method to depict the mountain stones and the outline of the riverbank. He uses light ink to outline the smokey riverside scenery. The half-open firewood door and the green bamboo and reeds that move against the wind show the dynamics, but also add an empty and quiet atmosphere to the picture.
Figure 3
The inscription in Figure 4 is "Buying fish on a boat is more beautiful, and it is better to sell wine on the snow" comes from Du Xunhe's "Fan Xiaoxiang of friends at the end of winter" in the Tang Dynasty. The snow-covered mountains reveal the coldness of winter. The entire picture space presents an empty and silent atmosphere. The poet in the riverside pavilion is buying the fattest fish from a fishing boat near the Xiang River, while a friend is carrying wine and walking in the snow. The painter expresses the scenery of the snowy mountains by leaving a large number of blank spaces, and contrasts them with the outlines of the lines of dry ink and dry brushes. A small amount of dyeing is expressed in the method of adding thick and light ink.
Figure 4
The landscapes in this album focus on the transcendent feelings of indifference to fame and fortune and non-intrusion of the world. It is worth noting that Lu Zhi presents objects with pen and ink at the time of virtual reality, and the lines are mainly thick ink. In sketching, his dry and wet, dry and moist brushstrokes show a unique business and interest. It is also worth mentioning that he has processed the picture quite clearly, and the pen and ink are fine but not crowded and cluttered. He does not emphasize the three-dimensional sense of objects, and the characters and houses in his writings appear innocent and simple, revealing his vision of longing to escape from the world.
Landscape painting in the Ming Dynasty generally showed a different interest from its predecessors. Ming dynasty painters paid attention to creating a specific landscape scene in the picture that is suitable for feelings. What they express is not the feeling and transcendence of the great feelings of heaven and earth, but more attention is paid to the connection of works with specific specific lives. Therefore, in Lu Zhi's four opening albums, in addition to the reproduction of the scene of the poem, it also expresses his experience and feelings in the landscape. Behind this feeling is the leisurely and leisurely literati feelings.
(Source: China Painting and Calligraphy)