During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644),
Suzhou became a gathering place
for Chinese intellectuals, including many well-known painters. According to
historical records, some 150 painters, about one-fifth of all the Ming Dynasty
painters, were in Suzhou, and
they formed an influential school of painting. Historically Suzhou was also known as Wumen, and this
painting school was named the Wumen Painting
School. Shen Zhou was its most
influential painter; other famous members were Wen Zhengming, Tang Yin and Chou
Ying.
Shen Zhou (1427-1509) and Wen
Zhengming (1470-1559) were major representatives of the Wumen School. Shen was also good at flower and bird
painting; these works form a transition to free-sketch flower and bird painting.
Shen drew upon the inheritance from the painting traditions of the Song and Yuan
Dynasties and formed his own fresh and elegant painting style. Wen Zhengming was
a student of Shen Zhou, so he obtained a solid grounding in painting and
mastered good brushstroke techniques. He led a comfortable life as a
scholar-official, and as a result he failed to develop a wide perspective in his
creative work. His works can be divided into two types -- bold black ink
landscape paintings and refined and elegant green landscape paintings in a
meticulous style, such as Innumerable Mountains and
Valleys. Tang Yin (1470-1523), alias Tang Bohu, was a student of Shen Zhou. He
was accomplished in poetry, prose and calligraphy, and excelled especially in
painting. Tang Yin had an unrestrained personality, experienced many hardships
in life and was poor and frustrated in his later years. He died in his fifties.
Tang followed the Southern Song Dynasty painting style but was not fettered by
old conventions. He was good at landscape, flower and bird and figure paintings
in both free sketches and fine brushwork. His paintings on folklore themes
reveal the rich flavor of life, and his brushstrokes are fluid, vigorous and
elegant. He inherited old traditions but created his own style.
At the same period of the
Wumen School, there was another influential school
-- the Yuanti School (palace painting). The palace
paintings of Lin Liang and Lv Ji combined the two styles of both the free
sketching and the ink painting.
During the reigns of Emperors Longqing,
Wanli and Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty (1567-1644), the Wumen School flourished. Though the subjects of
Wumen School paintings were limited due to the
painters' narrow life circles, and some of their works were repetitive in
content, these painters inherited traditional Chinese painting skills to give
vivid presentation of the figures they depicted. They were all men of
considerable culture and had their respective aesthetic pursuits. Their
brushstroke techniques and creative painting methods had a tremendous impact on
painters of later times.