Zhu Da (1626~1705), whose real name is Zhu Tongquan, was a Chinese painter and monk in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. A native of Nanchang, Jiangxi, he was a descendant of Zhu Quan, King Ning of Nanchang, and became a monk after the death of the Ming Dynasty. Because he tried to uphold the Bada Ren Enlightenment Sutra, he was also called Bada Shanren.
Zhu Dayi had many aliases, nicknames and aliases. The main names are: Dharma name Chuanji, Xuege, Geshan, Wulu, Renwu, among which Badashanren is the most famous. According to records, he also abandoned the monks and became a Taoist, changing his name to Zhu Daolang and his courtesy name Liangyue.
There are also many inscriptions on calligraphy and painting, such as "March 19th", "Xiangruchi", "Shide", "He Yuan", etc., which have deeper meanings. In addition, when he signed his signature, he often wrote "Bada Shanren" in succession with the words "cry" and "laugh" to express his anger. As a descendant of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Da suffered the loss of his country and his family, and did not cooperate with the Qing Dynasty throughout his life. He was aloof and stubborn, behaved eccentrically, and vented his grief, anger, and depression through poetry, calligraphy, and painting. A life of poverty and misfortune has created the necessary hardships for a talented artist, and also contributed to his artistic value.
Zhu Da's father and grandfather were both good at calligraphy and painting, so he was influenced by art since he was a child. He was able to compose poetry at the age of eight, draw green landscapes at the age of eleven, and write Mijia regular script with his wrist hanging from his wrist when he was young. Weak crowns are for all living beings.
After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, he became a monk in Gengxiang Temple in Fengxin County with an attitude of dissatisfaction with the Qing Dynasty. He was twenty-three years old. Later, he lived in seclusion in Jie Gang, Jinxian County, Mu Gang, Yongfeng County and other places.
In the last years of Shunzhi, when he was thirty-six years old, he sneaked back to Nanchang and founded Qingyunpu Taoist Temple. It took him six or seven years to make the Taoist temple take shape and live here. The working life of "there is nothing left" and "my couple moved to plow the fields and dig wells". He wanted to turn this place into a paradise in order to achieve his long-standing wish of "finding a place of freedom".
But this "freedom in the field" was established under the rule of the Qing Dynasty after all, and it was impossible to "don't have to have cars and horses outside the door". Because Qing Dynasty dignitaries often came here to harass him, he often traveled to other places.
When he was fifty-three years old in the seventeenth year of Kangxi, Hu Yitang, the magistrate of Linchuan County, heard of his name and invited him to stay with his chief monk Rao Yupu in the official residence of Linchuan for more than a year. This made him very distressed and angry, so he pretended to be crazy, tore his monk's robes, and walked back to Nanchang alone. More than a year later, he returned to Qingyunpu and spent his "60th birthday" here. When he was sixty-two years old, he stopped being the abbot and handed over the Taoist temple to his Taoist disciple Tu Ruoyu.
Later, he hid in Beilan Temple, Kaiyuan Temple and other places near Nanchang. He often sells paintings to make ends meet. Later, he built a humble house named "Henggecao" hall. Ye Danju Zhangjiang wrote a poem "Crossing the Eight Mountains": "A room full of songs is filled with rustling dust and wormwood. The door is dark, and the poems and paintings are Zen-like. The old man who left behind the world and escaped is famous, and the mountains are left with water. The green body is green. The old business is still there, but there are only a few people growing melons. "Zhu Da is good at flowers, birds, and landscapes, and his flowers and birds inherit the tradition of freehand flower and bird paintings by Chen Chun and Xu Wei. It developed into a broad-brush freehand painting method, which is characterized by exaggerating the painted flowers, birds, fish and insects through symbolic and allegorical techniques. With its unique image and concise shape, the image in the painting is prominent, the theme is clear, and even He painted the eyes of birds and fish as "white eyes toward people" to express his aloof and cynical character, thereby creating an unprecedented flower-and-bird look.
The brushwork and ink used in his paintings are simple and bold, vigorous and forthright, dripping and smooth, the composition is sparse and dangerous, and the style is majestic and simple. He first learned landscape painting from Dong Qichang, and later from Huang Gongwang and Ni Zan. He mostly painted ink landscapes, with simple and vigorous brushwork and a desolate and lonely artistic conception. He is also good at calligraphy and is good at cursive and cursive calligraphy. Wang Xizhi, Wang Xianzhi, Yan Zhenqing, Dong Qichang, etc. use bald pens to write in a smooth and elegant style.
Bada Shanren devoted his main energy to painting all his life. He had a broad mind and sang generously. Due to the characteristics of the times and his life experience, he held an uncompromising attitude towards the Qing Dynasty and vented his sorrow and anger in calligraphy and painting. Therefore, birds with swollen bellies, glaring fish, and even birds with one foot on the ground appear in the painting to show their incompatibility with the Qing court, with their eyes pointing upward and white eyes toward the sky. He often combined the four words "Bada Shanren" and wrote them in cursive, which resembled the words "cry" and "laugh". He also wrote many obscure and difficult poems and postscripts, expressing his extreme hatred and contempt for the Qing court.
His novels, poems and literary works express distinct love and hatred.
For example, the popular "Peacock Picture" and its title poem: "The peacock is famous for its flowers and rain on the bamboo screen, and the bamboo tops are strong and half ink grows; how can you tell the three ears, it is the second watch in spring." A bitter satire on the squad leader The big Han landowner wearing a black gauze hat with three eyes and feathers bowed his knees to seek glory and surrendered to his new master, looking like a slave.
There is an inscription on a landscape album: "The clouds of the Guo family are small, but there are many on Dong Lao's hemp trees. I want to see people at that time interpret the pictures, and the mountains and rivers of the Song Dynasty are also written on the peaks." He admired Dong Yuan, a painter of the Five Dynasties in Beining, and Guo Xi's unique pen and ink description of the Song Dynasty, which was not invaded by foreigners, inspired thoughts and feelings of love for the motherland. "Magpie Stone Scroll" (currently in the collection of the Bada Shanren Memorial Hall of the painter) depicts two magpies standing on a large stone. The meaning of the painting is that the magpies occupy the dove's nest and soar around the rock. "Poetry·Zhaonan·Magpie's Nest" says: "The magpie has a nest, and the dove lives in it." It is said that "the corpse dove does not make its own nest, but lives in the magpie's nest." Badashan people made this metaphor to satirize the Qing Dynasty If you are not good at seeking your own benefit, you will seize other people's land by force. It also deliberately shows the two magpies gathering on the rock, which cannot be occupied and shaken by the corpse dove.
He often painted lotuses, turquoise, plum blossoms, orchids, bamboos and chrysanthemums, reeds, wild geese, cranes, fish, ducks, eagles, deer, etc. Most of them symbolize his stubbornness and integrity. Throughout his life, he refused to paint a flower or a stone for the powerful people of the Qing Dynasty, but ordinary farmers, poor people, mountain monks, and children could easily obtain his novels, poems, and literary works. This spirit of not yielding to power has always been appreciated and praised by people. .
Bada Shanren has made outstanding achievements in art. Focusing on painting, he also has high attainments in calligraphy, poetry, postscripts, and seal cutting. In painting, he is famous for his large-scale freehand ink paintings and is good at splashing ink. He is especially famous for his flower and bird paintings.
In his creation, he adopts natural methods, concise pen and ink, majestic and unique, creating a high and vertical style. Over the past three hundred years, all major freehand painting schools have been more or less influenced by him. Zhang Geng in the Qing Dynasty commented that his paintings had reached the realm of "clumsiness in the rules of the square and circle, and despicable study in color painting". He advocates "sparing" in painting. Sometimes he only paints a bird or a stone on a large paper, with a few strokes and a unique expression. His calligraphy has a vigorous and graceful style. The seal carving has a simple shape and a unique pattern.
In the process of developing his own style, Zhu Da inherited the fine traditions of the previous generation and found his own path. His flower and bird paintings, the wild style of Xu Xi of the Five Dynasties of the distant dynasty, and the orchid, bamboo, ink and plum blossoms of the literati painters of the Song Dynasty were also influenced by the techniques of Linliang, Lu Ji and Lu Zhi of the Ming Dynasty, and he especially paid tribute to the extensive painting style of Qingteng Baiyang. His landscape paintings were as far back as Zong Bing of the Southern Dynasty, and he also learned from the Jiangnan landscapes of Dong, Ju, Mi Fu, Ni, Huang and even Dong Qichang. In terms of calligraphy, he studied stone drum inscriptions carefully and deliberately copied the dharma calligraphy of various schools since the Han, Wei, Jin and Tang Dynasties, especially those of Wang Xizhi.
Roughly speaking, the characteristics of Zhu Da's painting art are that he uses form to express emotions and deform to capture the spirit; his ink is simple and light, his brushwork is unrestrained; his layout is sparse and his artistic conception is spacious; he is energetic and majestic. His form and technique are the best expression of his true feelings.
Zhu Da’s artistic cultivation and skill are forged, as he said: “If you read thousands of volumes, your mind will be clear of confusion; just like traveling thousands of miles, you will encounter great masters.” He believes that painting is like this When climbing high, "you must climb frequently and then you will be fearless", which illustrates his spirit of continuous refinement of art.
In the confrontation between innovation and conservatism in the painting world of the early Qing Dynasty, Bada Shanren played a prominent role among the "Four Great Painting Monks" of the reformist group. In order to commemorate this great painter, the "Painter Bada Shanren Memorial Hall" was established in Qingyunpu, Nanchang City after liberation.
Zhu Da's art has caused great repercussions in the East, especially in Japan and even in the world's painting circles. Bada Shanren’s calligraphy, painting, novels, poems and literary works are no longer available. For example: "Powl Playing in the Lotus Pond", "Flowers on the River with Inscriptions", "Fish and Duck", "Fish and Music", "Miscellaneous Flowers", "Willows Bathing Birds", "Hibiscus" "Reed Goose Scroll", "Big Stone Fish Scroll", "Double Eagle Scroll", "Ancient Plum Scroll", "Moss Pine Scroll", "Autumn Lotus Scroll", "Panjiao Bamboo and Stone Scroll", "Chun "Deer Scroll", "Quick Snow and Sunny Scroll", "River Boating Scroll", "Four Frames of Silk Light Crimson Landscape Screen", as well as many banners, flowers, birds, fish, ducks, landscapes, trees and rocks in the album.
In terms of calligraphy, there are "Linlan Pavilion Preface Scroll", "Linhe Narrative Four Screens", as well as various masters' dharma calligraphy and cursive poetry scrolls, etc., all of which are collected in museums and courtyards at home and abroad.