Shen Zhou - Ming Dynasty

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       Shen Zhou (沈周, 1427–1509), courtesy name Qinan (启南), was a Chinese painter in the Ming Dynasty. He was born into a wealthy family in Xiangcheng (相城), near the thriving city of Suzhou (苏州) in the south of Jiangsu Province (Today Xiangcheng is a district of Suzhou). However various in stylistic source and subject matter, Shen’s art consistently bears his unique touch of an abiding confidence, restrained calmness, and subtle warmth. The ideal of his life and the accomplishments of his art have earned him reverence by all artists devoted to the ideals of the literati (wenren, 文人) tradition. He is regarded as one of the painting elite - “the Four Masters of Ming” (明四家), which also includes Tang Yin (唐寅), Wen Zhengming (文徵明), and Qiu Ying (仇英).

       Shen Zhou lived at a pivotal point in the history of Chinese painting. He contributed greatly to the artistic tradition of China, founding the new Wu School in Suzhou. Under the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368), painters had practiced with relative freedom, cultivating a more “individualist” and innovative approach to art that deviated noticeably from the more superficial style of the Song masters who preceded them. However, at the outset of the Ming, the Emperor Hongwu (reigned 1368-1398) decided to import the existing master painters to his court in Nanjing, where he had the ability to cultivate their styles to conform to the paintings of the Song masters.

 

       As Hongwu was notorious for his attempts to marginalize and persecute the scholar class, this was seen as an attempt to banish the gentry’s influence from the arts. The dominant style of the Ming court painters was called the Zhe School, as the leading figure – Dai Jin – was from Zhejiang Province. However, following the ascension of the Emperor Yongle (reigned 1403-1424), the capital was moved from Nanjing to Beijing, putting a large distance between imperial influence and the city of Suzhou. These new conditions led to the rise of the Wu School of painting, a somewhat subversive style that revived the ideal of the inspired scholar-painter in Ming China.

       Shen Zhou’s scholarly upbringing and artistic training had instilled in him a reverence for China’s historical tradition that influenced both his life and his art from an early age. He was accomplished in history and the classics, and his paintings reveal a disciplined obedience to the styles of the Yuan Dynasty, to China’s history, and to the orthodox Confucianism that he embodied in his filial life. He is most famous for his landscapes and for his “boneless” renderings of flowers, which are meticulously created in the style of the Yuan masters. However, he did not always paint within strict boundaries. His inherited prosperity afforded him the luxury of painting independently of patrons, and he did so in a way that, while revealing his historical influence, was uniquely his own. Shen possessed a large collection of paintings from the late Yuan and early Ming, which he and his scholar-painter colleagues used as models in forging the revivalist approach of the Wu style. He frequently combined experimental elements with the more rigid styles of the Yuan masters. Much of his work was done in collaboration with others, combining painting, poetry, and calligraphy at gatherings with his literati friends. It was upon these ideals that his Wu School was founded. For Wu painters, painting was a meditation, rather than an occupation. Shen Zhou’s paintings were frequently coveted and imitated by others. Through Shen Zhou’s eyes, however, a painting was not a commodity, but the very extension of the painter himself.

Artworks by Shen Zhou (view the entire painting gallery)