Xiang Shengmo's works are dominated by mountains and rivers, which is also the main aspect of his achievements. He began to learn from Wen Zhiming in his early years, but soon he jumped out of the limitations of Wen Zhiming's painting style and learned directly from the ancients. This is mainly due to his family's rich collection of famous paintings of past dynasties, which enables him to quickly learn the meticulous brushwork of Song people and gain the charm of Yuan people. In addition to the rich family collections of ancestors, it also benefited from its own experience of observing nature and traveling and sketching, which made its picture layout open and close, its artistic conception beautiful, its structure rigorous and changeable, its brushwork simple and elegant, its charm elegant and extremely bookish, and it had high character and ideological connotation.
There are two most commendable points in his paintings, which are beyond the reach of other painters at that time. First, the political color is strong. He used paintings to reflect people's sufferings, and pinned his sympathy and loyalty to the Ming Dynasty. After the change of "Shen Jia" and "Good Friend" successively, after the Manchu Dynasty entered the Central Plains, Xiang Shengmo no longer wrote the calendar years of dynasties in his paintings, but only used official branches, and stamped with the seals of "Minister of Wild Jiangnan", "People from Liaoxi County since the Southern Song Dynasty" and "Chu Shi from the Imperial Palace" to show his ambition. Most of the works in this period used paintings to express the oppression and anger in the chest, showing strong feelings of adherents. Xu Shuming titled "Poems of Landscape Written by Xiang Shengmo in the Third Year of Qing Shunzhi (1646)": "The feeling of snow changes from time to time, Wang Fusang has the thought of his motherland, and Dong Hu also has a history of poetry." Write profound meaning in painting, reflect the times and take painting as history. Li believes that his works after national subjugation contain graphic symbols loyal to the former dynasty and expressing the pain of national subjugation, such as: red, with "Zhu" as the Ming; A tree with strong leafless branches is called a country. Despite the storm, its branches still stand proudly and have indomitable spirit. Birds perched at dusk have nowhere to go, where is the meaning of home. The inscription of "The Wind Map of Big Trees" in the Forbidden City in Beijing is "The wind stands in the big trees, and the sunset stands alone in the western hills. Short-term strategy and any time, I can't bear to look back and look forward to it. " Can be used as a portrayal of my mood.
Second, extremely strict painting style and realistic attitude. Xiang Shengmo is good at absorbing materials from life. His paintings are close to reality, accurate and serious, contrary to the sloppy painting style at that time, and pursue the style of "escape pen" Wu Zeng said in the title of "Xiang Sheng Mo Qiu Sheng Picture Axis": "Mr. Wang specializes in painting for old friends, and he is meticulous and often laughs at it too much. Jun said: my pen and ink, if you want to spread for thousands of years, how can you be careless? The purpose is also the same. " It can be seen that Xiang Shengmo's earnest and good work style directly influenced his painting style, which made his painting unique at that time and won the reputation of "a writer with high morale".
Xiang Shengmo likes to draw tall trees, especially pine trees. The trees are thin, rubbed and dyed, and the trunk is uneven, with a strong sense of unevenness. However, the light-receiving part has a sense of volume, which is very different from the schematic drawing of ordinary literati paintings. Therefore, in the Ming Dynasty, it was known as "the name of Xiangsong is full of southeast". The trunk of the tree he painted is straight and strong, and the anthropomorphic picture is vivid and powerful, with strong personality strength.
Xiang Shengmo also has his own distinctive characteristics in the creation of flower-and-bird paintings, especially paying attention to modeling and intentional composition, and being good at expressing the level of flowers and petals, the brightness of the back and spots, which is different from other flower-and-bird painters at that time. Xiang Shengmo seriously absorbed the spirit of judging the situation of things and creation of the Yellow School, but influenced by the freehand brushwork of painting, he formed the form of combining meticulous painting and created a new trend of the development of meticulous flower-and-bird painting of the Yellow School. In terms of techniques, ink or light color is mostly used, and sometimes color is purely boneless, and the color is light but not light. In the pen, it is very dignified and elegant, so although it has a beautiful tone, it contains a rough character. The whole tone and atmosphere are elegant, different from ordinary people, as if there is a fragrance of Leng Yan floating in it. His style is reflected in the later works of Yun, Jiang Tingxi and others.
In addition to painting, Xiang Shengmo is also good at calligraphy and poetry. His calligraphy is dignified and rigorous, without losing the bookish spirit. Most of his poems are paintings. In addition to the landscape poems describing mountains, rivers and natural beauty, many of his works express sympathy for people's suffering and nostalgia for the old country. His words and warnings are dignified, and his style is tragic and generous, which reflects his personality. His family was poor in his later years because of the ruin of his country, but he was noble and expensive, did not make friends with powerful people, and supported himself by selling paintings. He is the author of Langyuntang Collection, Qinghe Caotang Collection, Textual Research on the Surnames of Painters in Past Dynasties, and Mo Jun Inscription. ..