Monk Painter Shi Tao and His Innovative Paintings

A Painting of Huangshan

Characteristics of Shi Tao’s works mainly lie in Shi’s innovations. Despite the influence of his predecessors, namely Ni Zan and Li Yong, Shi’s art breaks with their ways of painting in several fascinating ways.

When it came to subjective perspective, Shi advocated expressing individuals’ feelings rather than sticking to the rules of the forerunners. He disregarded the rigid techniques and styles that defined what was beautiful, which won him the reputation as one of the most famous individualist painters of the early Qing Dynasty.

In a colophon dated 1686, Shi Tao expressed: "In painting, there are the Southern and the Northern schools, and in calligraphy, the methods of the Two Wangs (Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi)…if someone asks whether I follow the Southern or the Northern School, or whether either school follows me, I hold my belly and laugh, replying, 'I always use my own method!'"

Reminiscences of Qin-Huai

Reminiscences of Qin-Huai is one of Shi Tao's unique paintings, showing Shi’s individual expression instead of being restrained by his predecessors’ ideas. Like many of the paintings in the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty, Reminiscences of Qin-Huai depicts humans’ place in nature. At first glance, the craggy peak in the painting seems distorted.