Dong Qichang, whose real name is Xuanzang, was born in Huating, Songjiang, and was a painter in Ming Dynasty. In the seventeenth year of Wanli, at the invitation of the Hanlin Academy, he went to Nanjing as the minister of rites. After his death, he was named Wen Min. Dong Qichang is an outstanding representative of Huating School, who is good at painting landscapes. His paintings are delicate and neutral, quiet and spacious, clear and clean, bright and blue, turquoise and elegant. He compared painting with Buddhism and Zen, and advocated the theory of "Southern and Northern Schools".
17 years old, Dong Qichang took the Songjiang government exam. At that time, he wrote a very proud eight-part essay, thinking that he would definitely win the championship, but when he announced the list, he was not as good as his cousin Dong. The reason is that Songjiang magistrate Zhong thinks that the words on his test paper are poor, and although the article is good, it can only rank second. This incident greatly stimulated Dong Qichang, who made great efforts to learn calligraphy.
The significance of the emergence of Huating painting school
The so-called "Hua Tingpai" mainly refers to a group of landscape painters around Dong Qichang. Their aesthetic ideas and painting styles are generally consistent, and they are collectively called Hua Tingpai. Dong Qichang, proud of his official career, is a senior official of the Ministry of Rites. In painting and calligraphy, he made great achievements, not only as a representative painter in Hua Tingpai, but also as a leading figure in painting circles in the late Ming Dynasty, and his influence spread to more than 300 years after the end of the Ming Dynasty.
The appearance of Hua Tingpai marks the revival of literati painting tradition. We know that the development of painting history after Yuan Dynasty, Zhejiang School and other painting schools after Wanli are not very pure in nature as far as Wu Pai is concerned. Its team includes mixed painters, such as Chou Ying.
Even literati painters regard painting as a tool to make a living, and turn their own creation into a commodity that appeals to both refined and popular tastes, so that in the construction of painting subject, they do not hesitate to shake the dominant position of landscape as a large and orthodox literati painting. This is one of them.