Introduction: I believe the name Wen Zhengming is familiar to many people, so do you know which dynasty Wen Zhengming came from? Next are the articles I have collected and organized for you, welcome to read!
Wen Zhengming (1470.11.28-1559.3.28), formerly known as Bi (or Zuobi), had the courtesy name Zhengming. From the age of forty-two, he began to use the word "Xing" and the word "Zhengzhong". Because he was born in Hengshan, he was named "Hengshan Jushi" and was known as "Wenhengshan" in the world. He was Han nationality and a native of Changzhou (now Suzhou, Jiangsu). He was a painter, calligrapher and writer in the Ming Dynasty. Because he went to the Imperial Academy to wait for the imperial edict, he was given the posthumous title of Mr. Zhenxian, so he was called "Wen daizhao" or "Wen Zhenxian". He was modest and upright. King Ning Zhu Chenhao hired him because he admired his virtues, but Wen Zhengming refused to go because he was ill. In the last years of Zhengde's reign, he was recommended to the Ministry of Civil Affairs due to the annual tribute students and was awarded the title of Hanlin to await imperial edicts. He did not serve the powerful, especially unwilling to paint for vassal kings or middle-ranking officials. He resigned and returned to his hometown soon after taking office. There is still "Futian Collection".
Main Achievements
Summary of Achievements
Wen Zhengming’s paintings are good at landscapes, orchid and bamboo, figures, flowers and other subjects, especially landscapes. In his early years, he studied under Shen Zhou, and later devoted himself to Zhao Mengfu, Wang Meng and Wu Zhen, becoming his own style. The painting style has two aspects: thick and thin. The thick brushwork comes from Shenzhou and Wuzhen, and is based on Zhao Mengfu's ancient wood, bamboo and stone techniques. The brushwork is vigorous and dripping, with dry brush scratches and white calligraphy, and the layers and charm can be seen in the rough slips. There is little space and depth, the shape is regular, and sometimes there are edges and deformations. The brushwork is precise and a little jerky, showing naivety in the sophistication. The colors are mostly green and heavy, with light crimson in between, showing elegance in the freshness. This line of fine-brush landscape painting is an authentic painting with decorative, lyrical, childlike, and family-friendly characteristics. It also established the basic characteristics of the "Wu School".
Wen Zhengming’s first calligraphy master was Li Yingzhen, and he later studied extensively the famous calligraphy of previous generations. He had various attainments in seal script, official script, regular script, running script, and cursive script. He is especially good at running script and small regular script. He is gentle and vigorous, rigorous in law and vivid in mood. Although it is not powerful and powerful, it has the style of Jin and Tang calligraphy and has its own certain style. The small regular script strokes are gentle and the rhythm is gentle, which is in harmony with his painting style. He is known as "the best in the Ming Dynasty".
In the history of calligraphy, Wen Zhengming is famous for being good at all calligraphy styles, especially running script and small regular script. Wang Shizhen commented in "Yiyuan Xiayan": "Wen Zhengming was famous for his small regular script throughout the country. The person who touched it was Li Er, and the seal script alone was not taken lightly by others, but it was also written in four styles of "Thousand Character Essay". It can be called the jade version of "Holy Teaching", and the official script of "Shou Zen" is also wonderful. The seal script is Jin Jinyang Bingmen style, and the regular script has small methods, which is precious."
Wen Zhengming's calligraphy is gentle and elegant. Steady and mature, strict in rules and lively in spirit. Although it is not majestic, it has the style of Jin and Tang calligraphy. His writing style is less fiery, and he often reveals a gentle and elegant atmosphere in his joyful writing. Perhaps the ups and downs in his official career have sapped his youthful spirit, but his late blooming has made his style increasingly stable. Wen Zhengming was the leader of the Wumen School of Painting after Shen Zhou. He had many followers and disciples, forming the largest painting school in the Wumen area at that time.
Painting Achievements
Early Works
In Wen Zhengming's early works, we can see the expression of his delicate and precise memory and powerful organizational ability. The careful description with ordinary lines is not only very delicate, but once the blur effect is used, the subtle gray parts will come alive. Thick ink is usually only used for key points, and the colors are much lighter. The result of this is that according to the "Wind and Rain and Lonely Boat" in the album or the "Spring Mountain Smoke and Trees" styled by Mi Fu, it will be classified as a style of late Song Dynasty painting. However, at the same time, this picture cannot even be compared to the ancient use of turquoise in "Spring Trees After the Rain" or the snow scene techniques of "Deep Snow in Xishan Mountains". The painters who were active in Suzhou at that time, especially the disciples who were taught by Shen Zhou, were greatly admired by everyone in the Yuan Dynasty. "Imitation of Wang Meng's Landscape Painting" is the earliest painting in a series of works with the same theme that Wen Zhengming made based on his life experience. Ni Zan's style can be seen in "Summer Retreat in Donglin" - a slightly bolder use of Shen Zhou's style. The shadow of Wu Zhen can also be seen in the slender sketch "Autumn Mountains"; the "Tianping Jiyou Tu" (1508) now in Shanghai is based on Huang Gongwang's style. The sensitivity, conciseness, and simple ancient style in the representative "Listening to the Spring Picture" are closer to Zhao Mengfu's style.
At this time, Wen Zhengming's landscape paintings had two typical styles: "coarse prose" and "fine prose". His thick-brush landscapes are mainly based on Shen Zhou and Wuzhen, showing layers and charm in rough sketches; fine-brush landscapes are based on Zhao Mengfu and Wang Meng, with fine brushwork and dense scenery. The colors are mostly painted with green and heavy colors or light crimson in between, which is elegant and quiet, and has a strong decorative meaning. Wen Zhengming has a gentle and elegant temperament. He especially admires the elegant, delicate and subtle painting style. His works are mainly fine-brush landscapes. This is obviously different from Shen Zhou's strong, vigorous, rough and public painting style. There has always been a saying in the collecting world that "the rough writing is heavy and the fineness is heavy". His rough-brush landscapes are more popular among collectors because they are less in number.
Later works
Wen Zhengming’s later works combine the green method and the shallow drop method. There are two types of green landscapes by Wen Zhengming, one is thicker and the other is lighter.
The former type of works such as "The Picture of Red Cliff after Zhao Bosu", "The Picture of Tall Trees in Deep Spring", "The Picture of Tall Trees in Dawn", etc. The latter type of works are more numerous, such as "Preface to Orchid Pavilion", "Picture of Spring Trees after Rain", "Picture of Huxi Cottage". "wait. Wen Zhengming inherited Zhao Mengfu's coloring method in the coloring of green landscapes. Compared with the Song Dynasty academy paintings, Zhao Mengfu's coloring is no longer the rich and tacky coloring method. Despite the heavy criticism, some of Zhao Mengfu's exquisitely crafted green landscapes still have a rich legacy of Song Dynasty courtyard paintings. It can be said that Wen Zhengming has completely got rid of the gaudy and tacky painting style of the Song Dynasty in the coloring of green landscapes. Judging from his works, Wen cleverly integrated the green method and the shallow drop method, making his works It is both clear and elegant, and full of interest in writing. Wen Zhengming was a literati painter who attached great importance to color effects. He made great contributions to the coloring of Chinese paintings and created a new style of green landscape painting in the Ming Dynasty.
Judging from the extant works of Wen Zhengming, there are many works based on the brushwork of the four masters of the Yuan Dynasty, which reflects Wen's preference for the brushwork of the Yuan Dynasty. His paintings do not simply use the brushwork and ink techniques of one of the four schools of the Yuan Dynasty, but are good at skillfully integrating the brushwork, composition and shapes of each family. From the perspective of a painter, Wen Zhengming's study of the Yuan people's brushwork and formal aesthetics is quite profound. The various brushwork characteristics and modeling techniques of the four Yuan families have been perfectly inherited and transformed in his paintings.
Calligraphy Achievements
Wen Zhengming is a model of Bo Fei's expertise in calligraphy. Wen Zhengming's lower regular script is the most accomplished. The main imitations are Wang Xizhi's "Huang Ting Jing", "Le Yi Lun", Zhong Yao's "Proclamation", Wang Xianzhi's "Thirteen Lines", etc. It can also be integrated into the small regular script of the Tang Dynasty to form a "warm, pure and exquisite" own style. style.
Wen Zhengming's running script can be roughly divided into two major styles: one is the running script sketches written mainly with the brushwork of Wang Xizhi's "Holy Teaching Preface"; the other is the large running script written with Huangshangu's brushwork. Before forming these two major styles, he also went through a stage of extensive research. He not only searched for Wang Xizhi's dharma stickers as much as possible, but also studied Yan Zhenqing's "Struggle for Seats", "Manuscripts of Memorials to Nephew", "Liu Zhongshi" "Tie", "Yingzhou Tie", Su Dongpo's "Qian Chibi Fu" (for this reason, the missing thirty-six characters in the book were supplemented in Su style), Huang Shangu's "Jingfubo Temple Poems", "Zhuzhi Ci" and Mi Fu, The ink of Zhao Mengfu and other calligraphy masters. Sometimes, like Zhu Yunming, he can write his own poems in the style of Su, Huang, Mi and others. Of course, he did not stay at this stage. Instead, he sublated the ancient methods and finally found his own style of writing that suited his own nature.
Wen Zhengming’s cursive script not only learned from Erwang and Zhiyong Xiaocao, but also from Huaisu and Huangshangu’s Kuangcao. The former type of grass is the most common, and it is often incorporated into his running script. There are very few Kuangcao works, and only three works were seen when he was 43, 50, and 51 years old. At the age of 43, at the request of a friend, he wrote "Poems on Donglin Summer Resort Picture Scroll" (now in the New York Museum of Art). He wrote one poem each in Huangshangu running script, Kuangcao and Su style running script. Among them, there are seventeen lines in Kuangcao's poem "Walking Alone on the Stream on the Shangsi Day with a Pregnancy in My Mind". The body of the poem is composed of valley and Kuangsu. The "Cursive Scroll" written when he was 50 years old (now in the Wuxi Museum) was written after learning Gu Kuangcao's "Zhuzhi Ci" and imitating his writing style. When he was 51 years old, "August 6th Calligraphy·Autumn Huai Qilu Poems" (now in the Shanghai Museum) has shed the wild grass in the valley and is close to Huaisu's divine will. Compared with Zhu Zhishan, who is famous for his wild grass, this painting is not inferior. Li Deng wrote in a postscript at the end of this volume: Calligraphers can imitate, even if they are of the highest quality, they can try their best to imitate it. As the saying goes, step by step, it is impossible to imitate the grass sage such as Ding Su. Why? Use danger to escape. But in order to imitate, God will be separated first. Therefore, it can be lifelike, so-called elegant and dust-free, yet it is the latter.
Wen Zhengming’s official script works are not many, but he is quite proud of them. He mainly studied Zhong Yao, Liang Hu, etc. He sometimes wrote postscripts in official script, such as "Postscript Fan'an Shihu Poems", "Postscript Kangli Zishan Shu Li Bai Poems", etc.; he also often wrote four-body, thousand-character prose (zheng, cursive, official, seal script); sometimes he wrote in large characters The official script is used as the introduction. His large-character official script is very different from his small-character official script. In addition, he once collected Han official script to write the "Yun Yao of Han Li" (yun compiled by Zhu Yunming, collected by the National Library), which shows that he worked diligently on official script and spared no effort to promote this style. Although Wen Zhengming's official script is not the style of calligraphy he is best at, it is also a typical official script style of the Ming Dynasty. I am afraid it has something to do with this move. Wen Zhengming's seal script is considered a weak point compared with other calligraphy styles. However, in the Ming Dynasty when the trend of seal script writing was quiet, his seal script is still quite rare and precious. "Yiyuan Siyan" Since Wen Zhengming often wrote thousands of characters for daily lessons, his seal script has considerable basic skills.
Wenjia once said in "Xianjun Xinglue": "The fair and elegant Duke Wenmin of Muyuan Dynasty had many teachers for everything. The commentator's public erudition, including poems, lyrics, articles, books, and paintings, although It is the same as Zhao, but the source is pure, if not better." From this we can see that Wen Zhengming is not only excellent in poetry, calligraphy and painting, but also good at calligraphy, seal writing, official writing and cursive writing, which is better than his predecessors Wu, Wang and Li. , Shen, Zhu, etc. can be used in both seal and official scripts. Therefore, he was able to lead the alliance with Wumen Calligraphy School after Zhu Yunming.
Poetry Achievements
In the early period, Wen Zhengming was one of the "Ten Friends of Dongzhuang" and the "Four Talents in Wuzhong". In the later period, he "maintained elegance for decades". The Wen Shi Zong of the Song Dynasty and Zong Zhong of the late Tang Dynasty combined the strengths of each school, such as the neatness of Lu Shi, the literati interest of Su Shi, the elegance of Bai Shi, the depth of Liu Shi, etc.
In addition, Wen Zhengming's own personality and interests are integrated into the poems, forming a poetic style of "elegant order, elegant rhythm at times".
First, among the elegance, the "elegantness" of the poems naturally affects the structure and rhetoric arrangement of the poems to a certain extent, which is also more elegant. In poetry, the structure is rigorous and the sentences are neat, reflecting the characteristics of order. Zheng Ming once studied Lu You, and both of them liked to use couplets in their poems. In literature and poetry, couplets are everywhere, and there are four commonly used couplets: number pairs, overlapping word pairs, color pairs and people and place name pairs.
Secondly, the "Easy Rhythm" poetic style. The "Easy Rhythm" in poetry is mainly reflected in the feeling of seclusion and elegant beauty. Wen Zhengming had a strong sense of seclusion, which was naturally revealed in his poems. The otherworldliness of his reclusive feelings makes his poems express an elegant spirit. Furthermore, Wen Zhengming's elegance and reclusive feelings make his poems break away from the secular world and give him an air of otherworldliness. Some of his poems are written elegantly and freely. Such as "Drunken Immortal Picture".
In summary, Wen Zhengming's poetic style is both "elegant" and "elegant". Wuzhong has distinctive regional characteristics and is full of "elegant" atmosphere, which is in sharp contrast to the "vulgar" poetry of Wuzhong at that time. . Influenced by the vulgar culture of Wuzhong, Wen Zhengming also wrote a very small amount of poetry with vulgar characteristics, but elegant poetry dominated. The style of literature and poetry in the prosperous Tang Dynasty was not high according to the standards of the Qizi School at that time. However, the elegant and unrestrained spirit reflected in some of his poems made his poems get rid of the soft style, but the proportion was only small; At the same time, literature and poetry cannot be measured purely by the standards of the Qizi School. They need to be viewed from a dialectical perspective and have their own unique aesthetic value.
A rich collection of books
Wen Zhengming’s family had a very rich collection of books, calligraphy and paintings, with real and fake collections. Among the ancient books in the collection, there are many rare books. The Song Dynasty engravings include "The Book of Changes", "Zi Zhi Tong Jian", "Hong's Collection of Prescriptions", "Chongxu Zhide Zhen Jing", "Du Gongbu Thatched Cottage Poems", "Bai's Collected Works", etc. 10 Several types, nearly a thousand volumes. There are many names in its library. From the seals of its collection, we now know that there are "Yulan Hall", "Xinyi Hall", "Cui Bamboo House", "Plum Blossom Book House", "Meixi Jingshe", "Yupan Mountain House", "Yantiao" "Pavillion", "Enlightenment Room", "Qingbai Hall", "Return Hall", etc. The seals of the book collection include "Zhuwu", "Wuyanshi", "Jiangzuo", "Tingyun", etc. After his death, his sons Wenpeng and Wenjia were able to preserve his books, calligraphy and paintings.