Ni Zan (1301～1374) was a painter and person in the Yuan Dynasty. His first name was Jue. The courtesy name is Taiyu, later the character is Yuanzhen, the names are Yunlin Jushi, Yunlinzi, or Yunlin Sanren, also known as Jingmanmin, Jingming Jushi, Zhuyang Guanzhu, Puxian Xianqing, Huanxiazi, Donghai Nong, Wuzhu Anzhu, Juetingzi, Ququansou, Canghaimanshi, Lazy Zan, Donghai Zan, Xi Yuanlang. A native of Wuxi (now Jiangsu). Ni Zan was erudite and fond of ancient times, and his family was rich and powerful. Famous people from all over the world came to his door every day. Emperor Shun of the Yuan Dynasty suddenly dispersed his family wealth to relatives and relatives in the early Zheng Dynasty. Soon after the war broke out, he fled on fishing boats to avoid it. In the Ming Dynasty, Huang Guan wore wild clothes and wandered around as a gangster. He specializes in poetry and painting, and paints landscapes with profound artistic conception. There is "Qing Zhen Pavilion Collection", which belongs to the four families of Yuan Dynasty.
His grandfather was a big landowner in his hometown, one of the richest people in Yuxiong Township. His father died early, and he has three brothers. The eldest half-brother Ni Zhao
Kui, courtesy name Wenguang, was an upper-level figure in Taoism at that time. He once promulgated Changzhou Road Daolu and advised Kaiyuan Palace affairs on Hangzhou Road. , the elemental god Ying Chongdao Master was given the title to give advice to the host, and a real person was given the title, Xuanzhong Wenjie Zhenbai Zhenren. Second brother (comatriot) Ni Ziying. In the Yuan Dynasty, the upper echelons of Taoism had a very high status and had various privileges. They did not have to suffer from labor and taxes, nor were they burdened by officialdom. Instead, they had extra ways to make money.
Ni Zan was raised by his eldest brother since he was a child, and his life was extremely comfortable and carefree. Ni Zhaokui invited Wang Renfu, a real person from his hometown, as his tutor. Ni Zan was influenced and educated by such a family, which developed his unusual attitude towards life. He was aloof, aloof and self-sufficient. He did not care about politics and was unwilling to manage production. He called himself Lazy (Lazy) Zan, also known as Ni Yi, and he was immersed in it all year round. The poetry and paintings were very different from the Confucian ideals of the world, so he ended his life as an official. She is very clean by nature, so she washes her clothes several times a day and the trees in front and behind her house. There are thousands of volumes of books in his home, which he has cataloged with his own hands.
Although Ni Zan had a wealthy family and a comfortable life when he was a teenager, he did not get into the habit of a playboy, and he was very strict about his own learning and cultivation. There is a three-story library at home, Qingzhen Pavilion, which contains more than a thousand volumes of classics, histories, works, collections, Buddhist scriptures, and Taoist books. Ni Zan read and wrote poems upstairs every day. In addition to carefully studying classics, he also dabbled in Buddhist and Taoist books. There are also famous calligraphy paintings from the past dynasties in the Qing Zhen Pavilion. The more recent ones include "Jian Ji Zhi Biao" by Zhong Yao of the Three Kingdoms, and the more recent ones include "Haiyu'an Picture" from the Song Dynasty. Ni Zan played with these masterpieces day and night, copying them with all his heart, especially Dong Yuan's "Xiaoxiang Picture", Li Cheng's "Maolin Yuanxiu Picture", and Li Cheng's "Autumn Mountain Picture". He devoted himself to copying and imitating their charm and temperament. At the same time, he often went out to travel and sketched the valuable scenery and objects he saw. He carefully observed various phenomena in nature and sketched seriously. When he returned, his paintings were often full of paintings. On the one hand, Ni Zan paid attention to inheriting traditional techniques, learned from the strengths of various schools, and studied diligently, which laid a solid foundation for his later innovations in painting.
In the fifth year of Yuan Taiding (1328), his eldest brother Ni Zhaokui died suddenly of illness. Subsequently, his mother Shao and his teacher Wang Renfu passed away one after another, making Ni Zan extremely sad. The privileges he had relied on his eldest brother were all lost, and Ni Zan became an ordinary Confucian scholar. His family's financial situation became increasingly difficult. With a sad mood, he wrote his own poems detailing his painful environment at that time. .
The 20 years from the third year of Yuan Tianli (1330) to the eleventh year of Zhizheng (1351) was the mature period of Ni Zan's painting creation. During this period, Ni Zan socialized extensively, and most of his friends were monks, Taoist priests, poets, and painters. Most of the poems he wrote were written for singing with such people. His close friend Zhang Boyu was a famous Taoist priest, for whom Ni Zan once carefully drew the "Picture of Wu Bamboo and Beautiful Rocks". Another famous painter he admired, Huang Gongwang, was also a celebrity in the Quanzhen New Taoism at that time. He had profound Taoism and was 32 years older than him. Huang Gongwang once spent 10 years painting "The Landscape of Lands and Mountains" for Ni Zan. It is more than two feet and five feet long. It is one of the masterpieces of Huang's light crimson landscape. The scroll is inscribed "Zhi Zheng Wu Zi" (1348); Ni Zan was 48 years old at that time. At this time, he began to believe in Taoism (Quan Zhen Religion), and developed a withdrawn character and a detached and escapist thought from reality. This thought was also reflected in his paintings, which showed a desolate, simple, quiet and sparse atmosphere. intention.
In the 20 years from the 13th year of Yuan Zhizheng (1353) to his death, Ni Zan roamed around Taihu Lake.
He wandered around Jiangyin, Yixing, Changzhou, Wujiang, Huzhou, Jiaxing and Songjiang, amusing himself with poetry and painting. This period was also the heyday of Ni Zan's painting. He carefully observed the quiet and beautiful mountains and waters of Taihu Lake, understood their characteristics, concentrated, refined and summarized them, and created new composition forms and new pen and ink techniques, thus gradually forming a new artistic style. The work has a distinctive personality, the brushwork is steep and simple, and the close-up view is a slope. There are three or five trees planted nearby, and one or two thatched huts and pavilions. The upper part of the work is blank to show the waves of the lake and the clear landscape. The sky, the distant mountains, the picture is quiet and tranquil, the realm is vast, this style has never been seen before. During this stage, Ni Zan created "Pine Forest Pavilion Picture" (1354), "Fishing in Autumn Festival" (1355), "Strange Rock Clusters and Huang Picture" (1360), "Ting Shu Yuan Ceng Picture" (1363), Many masterpieces such as "Autumn Colors on the River" (1368) and "Yushan Forest Valley" (1371) had a huge influence on Pengqing's later paintings, and he became one of the four great painters of the Yuan Dynasty.
On September 18th (October 25th), the 23rd year of Yuan Zhizheng (1363), his wife Jiang died of illness, and Ni Zan suffered a great blow. The eldest son died early, the second son was unfilial, and his life became more and more lonely and helpless. He was troubled, depressed, and at a loss as to what to do. In the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang once called Ni Zan to serve in Beijing, but he refused to go. On May 27th (June 28th) of the fifth year of Hongwu's reign in the Ming Dynasty (1372), he wrote a poem titled "Ti Yan Zhen Wu" which says: Being close to clear water and not stained by dust means that he does not want to be an official. When he wrote poems and inscriptions on the paintings, he only wrote about the Jiazi year, not the Hongwu year.
In the seventh year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1374), Ni Zan stayed with his in-law Zou's family in Changjing, Jiangyin. On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, he contracted spleen fatigue and went to the home of Xia Zhi, a famous doctor from Qiyou. Xia Zhu Tingyun Xuan to live in it. Ni Zan fell ill and died in Xia Mansion on November 11 of the lunar calendar (December 14) at the age of 74. His body was buried in Xili, Jiangyin, and later in the ancestral grave at the foot of Yingrong Mountain in Wuxi. Zhou Nanlao wrote an epitaph.