Born in Mianyang, Sichuan, Wen Tong was a painter, poet and official in the Northern Song Dynasty. He has served as a doctor in Taichang, a captain in Jixian County and a magistrate in Yangzhou. Wentong has made great achievements in painting, calligraphy and poetry, especially in painting bamboo. His cousin Su Shi is also a lover of bamboo. They have a very good relationship and appreciate each other.
Wentong works
The article is accompanied by 40 volumes of Dan Yuan Ji and 2 volumes of Addendum. There are few paintings handed down from ancient times, and the ink and bamboo paintings collected in the National Palace Museum in Taipei are its original works.
This picture takes inverted bamboo as the main body, with lush branches and staggered branches, and the stems are covered with new branches. Stems, nodes, branches and leaves are all painted with ink, which is full of vitality. There is a business that hides its strength in the process of crouching. The purpose of the author's painting is to vent his feelings and express his mind.
Mi Fei once commented on Wentong's paintings: "Take the ink depth as the surface and the light ink as the back, and start from scratch."
In addition, Wen Yanbo, Sima Guang, Su Shi and others all praised him.
The relationship between Wen Tong and Su Shi
Su Shi
Wentong and Su Shi should be cousins, while Su Shi claimed to be Wentong's subordinate cousins, and they had a good relationship. Besides, they all like bamboo very much. Wen Tong is good at painting bamboo, while Su Shi said, "Living without bamboo is better than eating without meat". It is said that Su Dongpo's bamboo painting techniques were taught by Professor Wen Tong.
When Wen Tong was the magistrate of Yangzhou, there were bamboo forests all over the mountains and sometimes he only ate bamboo shoots for dinner. Once, I received a letter from Su Shi at dinner. In addition to greeting and asking for warmth as usual, I also wrote a poem: "Han Daogeng's bamboo is as cheap as a canopy, and he doesn't spare dragons." It is expected that you are poor and greedy, with a thousand acres in your chest. " Wen Tong laughed after reading it and sprayed rice all over the table. He said frankly: There is no confidant in the world, only children can see my beauty.
In A.D. 1079, Wen Tong was transferred to Huzhou, but died on the way. When Su Shi learned about this, he touched a picture album of Zhu Mo given to him by Wentong, and his face was in tears.