This painting is the work of Wu Li, a painter in the early Qing Dynasty, and is called "Double Pine Stacked Springs". Wu Li inscribed a few lines on the painting, especially emphasizing that the painting imitated Jing Hao's style. Those who are familiar with ancient paintings know that Jing Hao lived in the late Tang Dynasty and was good at depicting the majestic mountains of the north. Jing Hao's painting style is very influential, and almost all the famous artists who painted landscapes in the Northern Song Dynasty absorbed nutrients in his works. Wu Li is a frequent acquaintance, and his living environment makes the landscape beautiful and flexible. He can't paint Jing Hao's momentum, so why should he imitate Jing Hao's works?
According to Dong Qichang's division criteria for the Northern and Southern Sects, Jing Hao belongs to the Northern Sect Landscape Painting School. Since Dong Qichang put forward the idea of advocating the south and suppressing the north, the Beizong Landscape Painting School has been denounced as "craftsman painting". Wang Hui put forward the concept of integrating the landscape painting schools of the Northern and Southern Sects, and under his influence, Wu Li and others also began to study the Northern Sect landscape painting schools. In terms of the degree of completion of the work, there is nothing wrong with the technique, but it doesn't look like Jing Hao's style.
According to the history of painting, someone asked Jing Hao for painting and put forward some requirements, such as "Don't ask for a thousand streams of water, only two pine trees." Leave a rock under the tree, and the horizon is far away. This is the prototype of "Double Pine Stacked Springs", with a thousand pen power and a smooth ink. In the process of imitating, Wu Li added some idealized expressions, borrowing mountains and rivers to tell the pursuit of life and the principles of doing things.
Jing Hao's mountains and rocks are square in the circle, and the edges and corners will never hide the sharpness of the pen. Wu Li, on the other hand, writes that the rocks are almost without edges and corners, but uses countless moss dots to emphasize the structural changes of the stacking of rocks. The difference in brush and ink techniques reflects the artist's aesthetics and the painter's creative attitude. Wu Li wanted to experience the artistic idea of "intending to put the pen first", and he incorporated some techniques of the Nanzong Landscape Painting School into his imitation. In fact, Wu Li is also trying to integrate the techniques of the Northern and Southern Sects, hoping to achieve higher achievements.
If you look closely at the pine tree in the painting, the bark has a scaly texture, but it grows tall and slender among the rocks. Anyone who has carefully observed pine trees knows that pine trees that grow in the soil are straight, and pine trees that grow in the crevices of mountains and rocks are often shaped like dragons, and the branches are horizontally and obliquely irregular. Wu Li painted like this, obviously with his own reasons. The foreground is shallow and flat, with a few alum stones piled up near the water's edge. In the composition, there needs to be a straight pine tree to emphasize the sense of space. Wu Li did not use it immediately, but only after adjustment.
When many people mention Qing Dynasty painters, they will say that they are conservative and have no innovative spirit. When you look at these details, you will find that a good painter, such as Wu Li, knows how to make his works full of interest. Transitioning from close-up to mid-view, the painting shows the beautiful scenery of fog-locked smoke cages, faint mountains and forests, and waterfalls. In terms of composition and layout, it still implements the aesthetic proposition of its predecessors.
The distant mountains should not be painted too neatly, the trees in the mountains should be of different heights, the trees are equivalent to the clothes of the mountains, and the trees should not completely wrap the mountains, and people should see the beauty of the mountains. Looking at paintings should be from part to whole, Wu Li must have read Jing Hao's "Painting Landscape Fu". In the process of integration and adjustment, Wu Li first painted the landscape according to his own understanding, and then experienced the spirit of the landscape painted by the thoughts of his predecessors.
Wu Li is very famous, and he is as famous as his contemporaries Wang Hui and Yun Shouping. Unlike Wang Hui, he always lives according to his own ideas. This sense of freedom is expressed in the painting, and it has the appearance of arbitrariness.
When you see Wu Li's antique landscape paintings, you will be attracted by the elegant and moist style, which makes people forget that he is imitating Jing Hao's works. Imitate its meaning without seeking to resemble it, perhaps this is the "intention of the pen first" that Wu Li realized.
Further reading
Several paintings with a high degree of similarity, if you look closely, you will find the wonders.
With a slight change in composition, it's another work.
The virtual and the real in landscape painting, the virtual and the real in the composition, are born together.
How should the chill in landscape painting be expressed.