culturenautique:lich-tung:virtual-artifacts:River Landscape in Rain by Zha Shibiao (1615-1698). Chin
culturenautique:lich-tung:virtual-artifacts:River Landscape in Rain by Zha Shibiao (1615-1698). China, Qing dynasty, 1687.// “In late Ming-early Qing period, facing the transition to the new alien dynasty, the intellectuals must identify themselves either to be “a collaborator to serve the alien Qing Manchus” or “a Ming loyalist”. Most of the Ming loyalists became professional painters because they did not have other skills. This group of professional painters in early Qing was different from that of the past. They insisted their identity of literati and what they sold were not only their skills of paintings and calligraphy, but also their loyalty, character, scholarship and taste. Zha Shi-biao(1615-1698) was one of them. However, as a loyalist, Zha didn’t show his impassioned loyalty to the dead Ming empire. He was a modest man who enjoyed his carefree and life. Not for too long, he accommodated himself to the new society under the foreign government of Qing. As the reign of Manchus was getting strong and stronger, the dispute of “Ming” or “Qing”, “Manchus” or “Han” was not that important anymore. Though Zha could face the reality of the Ming’s collapse easily, but he could never recover from the grief of the lost of his homeland through out his whole life. Zha Shi-biao was born of a rich Hui-zhou salt merchant family in Xiu-ning. Historical documents classified him as one of “Xin-an four Masters,” which also include Sun I, Wang Zhi-rui and Hong Ren. The painting style of Xin-an masters was greatly influenced by the preference of collection of Hui-zhou merchants. In that period, the most popular paintings in Hui-zhou art market was the paintings of Ni Zan. Whether you owned a Ni Zan’s painting or not is a criterion for others to judge you being “tasteful” or “vulgar”. In this circumstance, Xin-an painters usually inherited Ni Zan’s painting tradition. In addition, the homeland landscape of Mt. Huang and Mt. Bai in Xin-an was an important inspiration for their paintings. After Zha Shi-biao’s homeland was ravaged, he chose to sojourn in Yang-zhou. He spent the best of his life here, seeing this city recovered form the “ten-day massacre” and became a prosperous city. During his residence in Yang-zhou, besides the paintings business, Zha traveled many famous sites in southern China and attended literary gatherings actively. In the southern literati circle, Zha had the contacts with some scholar-officials, such as Da Chong-guang, Song Luo, Kong Shang-ren and Zhou Liang-gong. They were both friends and patrons of Zha. Their admiration and recognition for Zha’s works rose his reputation as a scholar-professional painter. Zha Shi-biao was also close with some contemporary painters, including Wang Hui, Shi Tao, Gong Xian and Kun can. They appreciated each others’ poems and paintings. Other than a scholar and painter, Zha was also a collector. He accessed the collector’s circle in southern China easily and it granted him many opportunities to see others’ collection, which was a great help to his study of the past. Although Zha Shi-biao spent most of his life in Yang zhou and even became a habitant of this prosperous and vanity city, he could never find the hometown in his heart here. He always called himself a “Han-shang traveler”, because he hoped the sojourn would be over one day and he could return to his homeland. Unfortunately, he didn’t return to his hometown in Xiu-ning again all his life. In 1695, Zha Shi-biao painted a hand scroll, Tao-hua yuan tu, referring to his homeland. For Zha, his homeland was a remote and sacred place like Tao-hua yuan—a place once you left, you could never find the way back again. So he could only dream of it and paint it on papers. Actually, the landscape of homeland had already deeply inscribed in Zha’s heart. The marvel and grandeur of Mt. Huang coming out of his brush and ink seemed to tell us that his affection to his homeland would last forever.” From: Studies of Zha Shibiao’s life and paintings - Author: Hsin-yi Tang(唐心怡) -- source link