Liang Kai was a native of Dongping in the Southern Song Dynasty. His ancestral home is Dongping (now Shandong) and he lives in Qiantang (Hangzhou). Ning Zongjia Taijian (A.D. 120 1 ~ 1204) was waiting for a letter from the Academy, but later left because of the rules of the Academy. Indulge in life, called Liang crazy. He is good at drawing figures, landscapes, Taoism, Buddhism and ghosts. Teacher Jia Shigu (Jia Yinshi is famous from Wu Daozi) is far superior to the teacher. It is said that people in the art academy couldn't help admiring Kai Liang's works at that time. It can be seen that Liang Kai is well-known in the Southern Song Dynasty Painting Academy. Kai Liang inherited the achievements of his predecessors and applied them flexibly. He deeply observed the spiritual characteristics of the characters he painted, expressed their voices and smiles with concise pen and ink, accurately grasped the essential characteristics of things with concise pen and ink, and fully conveyed the painter's feelings, thus pushing freehand brushwork to a new height, which was refreshing. According to the statistics of Pei Wenzhai's Calligraphy and Painting Spectrum, Baodi in Shiqu and Li E's Painting Annals in Southern Song Dynasty, Liang Kai left more than dozens of works, but we can only see about ten today, and most of them are not in China. Judging from the themes recorded in Liang Kai's works, most of them show Buddhism and Taoism, ghosts and gods, ancient literati, etc., such as You Jun, Intuitive Goose, Huang Ting Jing is a Goose, Yuan, Xiang, Cold Mountain Picked Up, Meditation Map, Tianletu and so on.
Kai Liang is a Zen painter, belonging to the rough school. Informal, bohemian, and has close contacts with Miao Feng and Monk Zhiyu. Although not a monk, he is good at Zen painting. Zen started around 520 AD and became a climate in the Tang Dynasty, which was divided into two factions: North and South. Huineng, a monk in the Tang Dynasty, was the sixth ancestor of Zen Buddhism. He had an epiphany that he was the founder of Nanzong. The theory of Southern Zen emphasizes that Buddha is in people's hearts, and everyone can realize Tao by drinking water and carrying firewood. All religious ceremonies are worthless, and people can communicate with the "absolute spirit" or "truth" in the state of transcendence without chanting, which is a natural and profound abstract experience. "Six Ancestors Cut Bamboo" shows that Huineng "has nothing to do with things, so it can be integrated with things; There is no wisdom in wisdom, so it can be transported with wisdom. " Kai Liang's "Six Ancestors Cutting Bamboo" was written after the middle of this year, and its brushwork is extremely rough. See the shape of the pen, the diameter of the pen fluctuates, the peak turns, and the local point; Make a tree if you want it, and make a stone if you want it. "My heart is overflowing, I am in a trance, and you are in and out." It seems that Kai Liang also dabbled in painting, and ignored painting. His figure painting is simple, general and vivid. All three can be reflected in his works. There are many dangerous pens in the painting, thick and thin, fast and slow, and varied; Jin Cuodao made ink bamboo, and a lot of rocks were swept out. There is an idea running through the painting, which is profound and profound, so we can calm down to the movement and change of pen and ink. Seeing Kai Liang's paintings is actually a pen and ink experience, a mood experience and a Zen experience.
Because he refused to accept the royal gold belt, he was once called "Liang Madman". His paintings are famous for "reducing strokes". Autumn Willow Flying Crow (collected by the Palace Museum), Six Ancestors Broken Sutra, Six Ancestors Cut Bamboo (collected by the National Tokyo Museum of Japan) and The Fairy with Ink Splash (collected by the National Palace Museum of Taipei) are all hand-painted with extremely concise pen and ink and highly summarized techniques. The immortal in "Painting the Immortal with Splash Ink" used a lot of ink to draw the clothes of the characters, and used a few strokes to outline the faces of the characters, which was vivid and vivid, which was a new creation at that time. The Tale of Eight Eminent Monks in Shanghai Museum and Sakyamuni's Coming out of the Mountain in Tokyo National Museum of Japan are rigorous in modeling and cautious in using pens, which are different from the restoration method with pens. There is also a poem of Taibai in Japan.