Chen Hongshou showed great talent for painting since he was a child. According to legend, when Chen Hongshou was four years old, he went to his fiancee's father-in-law's house to study. When he saw that the indoor walls were newly painted, he used tables and chairs as scaffolding and drew a statue of Guan Gong, a soldier who was eight or nine feet high. The statue stood hand in hand, lifelike. When the old father-in-law saw it, he was afraid to worship for a long time (when he heard it, he bowed down in shock, so he worshipped in the room). When his father died at the age of nine, he studied flower and bird painting with Lan Ying (one of the three sons of Zhejiang University). Lan Ying said admiringly: "If the Sri Lankan people make it into a painting, (Wu) Daozi and (Zhao) Ziang are all in the north, how dare we make a difference!" I was ashamed that I was not as good as Hong Mao in sketching characters, and vowed never to draw characters again, saying, "This is a gift."
On one occasion, Chen Hongshou saw a stone statue of seventy-two sages of Li in Hangzhou University, and drew one in ten days. They said it was very similar, and Chen Hongshou was very happy. Later, I went to Linxi for ten days and changed while staying. As a result, people said that Linxi didn't like it, but Chen Hongshou was even happier. When he was less than twenty years old, his grandfather and mother both died, and his brother was bent on swallowing his property. Chen Hongshou gave up his share and left home to live in Shaoxing.
Liu, a famous scholar in Shaoxing, is deeply influenced by his personality and knowledge. 16 16 In the winter, Hong Shou drew eleven characters in nine songs and another one in Qu Zixing's poems, which took only two days to complete. In the third year of the Apocalypse (1623), Hong Mao's wife, Xiaoshan Lai, died of illness and married Han Shi, a native of Hangzhou. Chongzhen three years (1630) should have failed the exam. In the 12th year of Chongzhen (1639), he went to Beijing for an official tour, which was closely related to Liang Zhou. After that, he donated money to imperial academy, known as Scheeren, and was ordered to copy the statues of emperors. Therefore, he was able to see the ancient and modern famous paintings hidden in the palace, and his skill was superb, which made him famous in the capital. Like Cui Zizhong, he was known as "South Cui". But when Emperor Chongzhen appointed him as a special painter for the imperial court because he witnessed the corruption of the regime, he refused to accept it.
In the sixteenth year of Chongzhen (1643), he retired to Shaoxing. After the demise of the Ming Dynasty, Qing soldiers entered eastern Zhejiang, and Chen Hongshou took refuge in Shaoxing yunmen temple. He cut his hair and became a monk, calling himself a penitent monk and a Cloud Gate monk. He changed his name late and old. Ceng Zi said, "How can you be a monk and live by a monk?" "You have been born for fifty years, but you are crying today." A year later, he returned to Guan, studied Buddhism and Zen in his later years, and took painting as his profession in Shaoxing and Hangzhou. Legend has it that an official claimed to have an ancient painting in order to defraud Chen Hongshou. I don't know whether it's a Song painting or a Yuan painting, so I asked Chen Hongshou to go to his hut for identification. Unexpectedly, the official took out a silk instead of a painting and insisted that Chen Hongshou paint for him. While swearing, Chen Hongshou undressed and prepared to jump into the water, which made the official give up. Chen Hongshou's character is dissolute and lecherous, and people who try to collect or buy his works compete to find paintings in the brothels he frequents. When the Qing army captured Nanjing, General Gushan really captured Chen Hongshou from the city and was overjoyed. He immediately instructed Chen Hongshou to paint, but Chen did not paint, threatened with a knife and did not paint. Finally, I was seduced by debauchery beauty and got what I wanted.
In his later years, he used to sit in Zhefu, tasting wine and cursing the street. In the nine years of Shunzhi, he "fell on the bed and murmured the Buddha's name and died". When he said that "man of great talent, involuntarily, was killed by Lu in Hangzhou", he was assassinated by Tian Xiong and buried in Guanshan, Xie Shu, Shaoxing.
The figures drawn by Chen Hongshou are tall, and the clothing lines are meticulous, clear and smooth, and the overall effect is above that of Chou Ying and Tang Yin. It is said that there has been no pen and ink of his style for 300 years. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, thousands of painters imitated Chen Hongshou, and their works and techniques were widely circulated in North Korea and Japan. Chen Hongshou has been engaged in printmaking all his life, which is widely spread around the world in the form of books and illustrations. His works are numerous, including Nine Songs, The West Chamber, The Tomb of Yuanyang, Leaves of the Water Margin, Leaves of Bo Gu, etc., all of which were carved by famous woodcuts of his time, and they are masterpieces of woodcut prints in Ming and Qing Dynasties. Chen Hongshou's works include Collection of Baoluntang, Avoiding Grass, Interpreter, etc. Chen Hongshou's printmaking art has obvious influence on the printmaking of famous painters such as Xiao and Ren Xiong in Qing Dynasty.
Become a monk after Ming's death and regret his name. Later I sold paintings in Hangzhou. He painted ladies, wore quaint clothes and frowned, which was very charming in Gu Zhuo. He has illustrated operas and novels such as The West Chamber, and his works include prints such as The Water Margin, Leaves of Bo Gu, The West Chamber, Yuanyang Tomb, Jiuge, Quzi Xingshi, and scroll paintings such as Xi Wa, Shi Nv and Huashan Island. The collection of books was also enriched for a while. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the ancestors built the "Rixin Building" library, and the grandfather Chen Yuejian built the "Baoshu Building". His father Chen Yuchao (1573 ~ 1606) once transferred to a temple in Shanxi to study. He is the author of Zhuluoshan Draft, Notes on the Four Books, and Self-satisfied Zhai Draft. He built a "Seven Chapters Hall" dedicated to the works of all ancestors and their ancient books, calligraphy and painting. Yu Yue called it "the collection of books in the Seven Chapters Temple is the best in the world". He is the author of "Don Quixote of the Baolun". Sun Chen Liexin (18 17 ~ 1899), whose real name is Zhai, has a rich collection of books.