The year 1354 AD, the fourteenth year of the Yuan Dynasty, was an important year in the history of Chinese painting.
This year, the two predecessors in the "Yuan Four Families" ——Huang GongwangwithWu ZhenBoth passed away, and the two juniors -Ni ZhanwithWang MengEscaping the chaos of the world.
The flowers of the troubled times gradually withered, and the heavens and the earth seemed to be quiet overnight.
But it's never quiet.
Ni Zan is slowly withering, Xiao Suo is bland, just like his painting, he has cultivated a pair of cold eyes; Wang Meng felt the changes in the mountains, and the turmoil of the times was like the prosperity and withering of flowers and trees, touching his eyes, and he could not get rid of his enthusiasm.
Many years later, Ni Zan wrote a poem full of exhortation to Wang Meng:
There is no picnic fish soup, and he will not be an official slave.
Tao Zhu Fan Li fled his name and surname, and it was like a fisherman.
Wang Meng did not listen to persuasion, but plunged headlong into the treacherous political deep sea. Maybe he's right, in that era, being a "smoke wave fisherman" who escapes from the world is just Ni Zhan's wishful thinking.
They chose different paths, but they were destined for the same end.
Portrait of Wang Meng. Source: Internet.
Wang Meng (1308?), a native of Wuxing (present-day Huzhou, Zhejiang?). -1385), and his family relationship can be briefly listed
Maternal grandfather: Zhao Meng[GF]982B[GF];
Maternal grandmother: pipe liter;
Uncles: Zhao Yong, Zhao Yi;
Cousins: Zhao Feng, Zhao Lin......
This family is a first-class painter, known as "a family of three generations and seven painters". Instead, it was Wang Meng's fatherKingdom utensils, everyone is relatively unfamiliar. But the kingdom is not an idle person, the history books say that he works in poetry, good at calligraphy, like to collect ancient scriptures, calligraphy and paintings, etc., at the age of 83, he also sent a few of his own poems to Yang Weizhen, a great poet in the Yuan Dynasty, Yang Weizhen was deeply shocked after reading, and commented"Strong and refreshing, the language is beautiful and convenient, and the gods and immortals in this snow moon are also".。If you think about it, Wang Guoqi must have extraordinary talents, otherwise how could Zhao Meng [gf]982b[gf] marry his beloved daughter to him?
With the education and training of his father and his mother's family, Wang Meng's growth process was very smooth, and he was considered to be talented"Poetry, calligraphy and painting have all family laws".
Portrait of Zhao Meng [GF] 982b [ GF]. Source: Internet.
When he was young, Wang Meng was famous for his poetry. "History of the Ming Dynasty: The Biography of Wenyuan" recorded, "When I was young, I gave the palace words, and Ren and Yu Youren saw it, and said, 'This Tang Dynasty is also a good sentence', so they took their sister's wife." Relying on a poem to win a marriage, it can only be said that some people's talent is really God's food.
Later, Wang Meng went north to the capital of the Yuan Dynasty, possibly because he wanted to use the influence of his grandfather Zhao Meng[gf]982b[gf]to seek a half-official position. This trip was described by the contemporaneous Gu Ying as "the pavilion princes are salty and friendly, so the name is important", however, on the surface, it looks very beautiful, but the actual result is not as expected.
On the one hand, at that time, Zhao Meng[gf]982b[gf]had been deceased for some years, and his former colleagues only politely received and sang poems to his grandson, but it was difficult to provide substantial help; On the other hand, it was much more difficult for Han intellectuals to gain a foothold and become officials in the Yuan Dynasty, whether it was the imperial examination or the recommendation, than in other dynasties.
In the end, Wang Meng left a few poems of "Farewell", returned home, and returned to Jiangnan alone
Wealth and glory float like water.
A hundred years is fleeting, and the white horse is drowned.
I was tired and worried.
But hold a wine, and persuade each other day and night.
Therefore, the mountain is full of laurel trees, and the leaves are thick and the branches have been thickened.
If you want to help, what else can you ask for?
In this poem, he clearly has the "discerning eye" to see through the glory and wealth and only seek to travel in the mountains, but it is unknown whether he has the same detached "wisdom".
The literati and doctors of the Yuan Dynasty basically faced a common dilemma:The choice of the master and the hidden。Wang Meng's maternal grandfather, Zhao Meng[gf]982b[gf], experienced the Song, Yuan, and Ding Revolutions, and was regarded as a stain on his life when he came out of the Yuan Dynasty, and he needed to face the cynicism of society. By the time Wang Meng and Ni Zan were born under the rule of the Yuan Dynasty, their resistance and resistance to this dynasty had weakened a lot when they grew up, but on the contrary, as foreign rulers, the discrimination and exploitation of these Jiangnan literati had increased unabated—this undoubtedly made these "New Yuan Dynasty people" have a strong sense of separation, and they wanted to integrate into the mainstream society, but they were not allowed to enter at all, and as a result, they could only seek a way to retreat.
To put it bluntly, the vast majority of hermits, the initial decision is passive and helpless.
Among the "Four Yuan Families", the eldest Huang Gongwang served as a minor official of the Yuan Dynasty in middle age, and was later falsely imprisoned. Wu Zhen once taught in the village school, and later studied the Book of Changes, through Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. Ni Zhan, who was born wealthy, couldn't bear the tax pressure of the imperial court, so he simply scattered his family wealth, floated around Taihu Lake, and completely boated the rivers and lakes.
In such an atmosphere of the times, Wang Meng, who was frustrated in Beijing, also packed up his belongings and escaped to Yellow Crane Mountain.
The inscription on Wang Meng's painting calls himself "Yellow Crane Mountain People". Source: Internet.
According to local historical records, there are three mountains in the north of Hangzhou, Gaoting, Yellow Crane and Tongkou. The three mountains are connected, the peaks and peaks are undulating, lush, and stretching for dozens of miles. With the Yellow Crane as the highest peak, the mountain is steep, the forest is deep, the spring is hidden in the stone cliff, and the clouds are covered with fog, just like a warrior guarding the north gate of Hangzhou. Legend has it that the immortal prince An rode the yellow crane to pass by this mountain, the crane chirped several times, the sound boomed in the sky, the peaks responded, and it was endless, so it was named the Yellow Crane Mountain.
From about the first year of Zhizheng (1341), Wang Meng moved to the Yellow Crane Mountain to live in seclusion, where he lived"The Yellow Crane Mountain lies in the white clouds, and the messenger is willing to ......In the Baihualou, he was a drunkard, and an iron flute was small."life.
He built the "Huhe Nunnery" on the top of the mountain, and since then he has called himself "Yellow Crane Mountain", opening a new stage of life with the attitude of a mountain man from outside the world. In the mountains, he copied historical sites, recited poems and painted, sometimes had friends visit to enjoy the paintings, and sometimes went down the mountain to a literati gathering, and his life seemed quite complacent.
However, when he greeted the sunrise and sunset in Yellow Crane Mountain, his heart was actually not calm.
Wang Meng has been painting tirelessly all his life, but the theme can be boiled down to two simple words:Seclusion。Whether it is "Fishing Hidden Map", "High Hidden Map", or "Mountain Dwelling Map", "Seclusion Map" and "Migration Map", all point to this theme. In the history of painting, seclusion is to Wang Meng, just as seclusion is to Tao Yuanming in the history of poetry.
The question is, whether it is Tao Yuanming or Wang Meng, seclusion is already a fact and a kind of daily life for them—unlike some literati and doctors in the officialdom and mundane world, who need to constantly write about the theme of seclusion to place their dreams on it—so why do they take the trouble to portray their "daily life" with words and ink?
Perhaps there is only one possibility, and it is theirsThe heart is too restless, and it is necessary to strengthen and shape one's state with the theme of seclusion。Whether it is poetry or painting, it is the tranquilizer of Tao Yuanming or Wang Meng.
It is said that Wang Meng painted Ge Hong's migration to Luofu Mountain many times in his life, and we can still see two of them, one is entitled"Gezhichuan Migration Map"., another entitled"Migration Map of Watagawa".to show the difference.
The common feature of the two paintings is that Ge Hong in the painting is either leading a deer or riding a bull, wearing a fairy-like and transcendent image, but behind this is a huge team of his family moving and dragging his family, not only his wife and children, but also the servants who carry the burden to carry the necessities of life to the mountain. All the way to the mountains, waterfalls and springs, thatched huts cover the mountains, the servants who arrived in advance have finished sprinkling and sweeping, waiting for the arrival of their masters. Compared with the traditional hermitage paintings, Wang Meng's two paintings contain too much "redundant information", and the wives, children, servants, and miscellaneous objects that should not have been painted seem to be eating away at the meaning of seclusion bit by bit.
Wang Meng, "Gezhichuan Migration Map" (detail). Source: Internet.
Wang Meng's "Zhichuan Migration Map" (detail). Source: Internet.
Why did Wang Meng paint like this?
When so many people and things pour into the mountains, the so-called seclusion is just a change of place to live an earthly life. This is exactly the mentality of Wang Meng, who escaped into the Yellow Crane Mountain, being in the mountains and his heart outside the mountains.
Ge Hong was a Taoist and alchemist in the two Jin Dynasty periods, and he was also a scholar in his early years, and was named "General Fubo" for his military exploits. In Wang Meng's view, although Ge Hong is a famous Taoist scholar, his seclusion has a dormant meaning. Escape to the mountains outside the world, but not the heart of the world. This is not so much the historical Ge Hong, but the self-projection of Wang Meng in reality on Ge Hong.
In Wang Meng's era, there were also literati doctors who were forced to live in seclusion and had no choice but to escape the world, some of them had been hidden for a long time, calming their minds, and some of them never gave up and waited for the opportunity. The differences, there are traces of writing poems and paintings, and it depends on the individual's temperament.
Wang Meng's friend Ni Zan takes pleasure in boating on rivers and lakes, and simplicity and sparseness have become the basic characteristics of his paintings. His landscapes are often just a few dead trees, a bay of thin water, and a faint distant mountain, which constitute all the elements of the picture, and there is not even a personal figure. This is obviously not the real world, but it is Ni Zhan's inner world. In other words, his paintings are a way for him to detach himself from reality.
Ni Zhan's "Rong Knee Fasting Map". Source: Internet.
And Wang Meng happens to be in contrast to this, he is characterized by complex and deep, heavy mountains, and impermeable. His landscapes, "covered by mountains and rivers, lingering valleys, lush forests, and uneven houses, seem to stretch for thousands of miles", even the seclusion gives people a sense of noisy people. This may be the real world, the real landscape, and even the seclusion of the family in the painting is also a real event, but we can clearly see that a turbulent heart under the picture is always inseparable from reality.
Wang Meng's "Picture of Forest House in Gu District". Source: Internet.
If literati painting is the presentation of the painter's mind, then Wang Meng and Ni Zan are at the opposite end of the dynamic and the static. No wonder Ni Zan keeps writing poems to persuade this old friend to be a real "smoke wave fisherman" and not to be obsessed with fame and fortune.
In the eighteenth year of Zhizheng (1358), more than ten years after announcing his seclusion in Yellow Crane Mountain, Wang Meng inscribed such a poem on a "high hidden map":
I am in the white clouds, and I have not forgotten the green mountains.
The wonders of the city, I don't know how to return.
Those who have gone cannot be persuaded, and who is responsible for those who come.
Lying down and watching the birds return, the mountains and clouds are idle.
The past and the future are not in his field of vision, only the current green mountains and white clouds are worthy of nostalgia.
However, paradoxically, just when his friends thought that he had reined in his heart, the situation changed drastically, and Wang Meng was ready to go out of the mountain.
Wang Meng, "Picture of Forest Houses in Gu District" (detail). Source: Internet.
From the 16th year of Zhizheng (1356) to capture Pingjiang Road (now Suzhou), Zhang Shicheng took Suzhou as the center to develop into a separatist force, and a large number of Jiangnan literati and doctors were recruited under his command. The specific time when Wang Meng came out of the mountain is unknown, but there are still some clues to be found.
In the twenty-first year of Zhizheng (1361), strange peopleXi YingzhenGo to Suzhou to take charge of Lingying concept. In the twenty-fourth year of Zhizheng (1364), Wang Meng painted a "Bamboo and Stone Flowing Spring Map" for Xi Yingzhen, and the inscription called it "Xinzhai Teacher", and interestingly, there were two inscriptions in this painting, one was the famous emperor laterYao Guangxiao, the other is one of the "Ten Friends of Beiguo".Wang Xing
Wang Meng's "Bamboo and Stone Flowing Spring". Source: Internet.
It's an intricate circle of communication. First of all, Xi Yingzhen converged Confucianism, interpretation, and Taoism, and bypassed the number of yin and yang techniques and military strategy, and Yao Guangxiao followed him to learn the art of war and strategy; Secondly,"Ten Friends of Beiguo".It was a literati circle in Suzhou at that time, with Gao Qi as the center, and the core members included Xu Ben, Zhang Yu, Wang Xing and others, but they were not pure literati gatherings, but with strong political aspirations and political tendencies, many of whom became Zhang Shicheng's staff at this time.
It can be seen from this that at the latest before the twenty-fourth year of Zhizheng (1364), Wang Meng had already left the mountain and threw himself into the talented Suzhou literati circle, on the one hand, he followed Xi Yingzhen to learn military strategy, and on the other hand, he served as an official position under Zhang Shicheng.
Therefore, Shi Shouqian, in the book "Mountains and Valleys: The History of Chinese Landscape Painting and the Audience", said that Wang Meng's seclusion was"Wait-and-see seclusion in turmoil".Seclusion is not the goal of life, but the preparation of the world. Watching the situation in the world in seclusion, he also thinks about the direction of his future career. This is also a portrayal of the true mentality of the entire Jiangnan literati circle at that time, including the "Ten Friends of Beiguo" and their related close friends.
Wang Meng's "Autumn Mountain Xiao Temple" was painted around this period, and there are two of his inscription poems on the painting, one of which reads:
The drums and horns of the border city complained about Qingqiu, and they sat up and were sad.
The dew droops and the trees are white, and the starlight is chaotic and the river flows.
For a hundred years, the people in the north and south are empty and old, and the world is like a float.
Don't be anxious for the return of the five lakes, you want to go to Songhua to see Shenzhou.
The feelings of joining the WTO in the poem are fully revealed, and the spirit of "not being anxious for the return of the five lakes, but going to Songhua to see Shenzhou" seems to be like two people who wrote "lying down to watch the birds return, and the mountains and clouds are idle". But this is the real Wang Meng.
It is precisely this kind of contradictory personality that has enabled him to open up a path in the history of Chinese literati painting that is completely different from that of his predecessors and contemporaries, and has profoundly influenced the development direction of Chinese painting in terms of technique and expression.
Due to his family background, Wang Meng's brushwork and aesthetics were deeply influenced by Zhao Meng's [gf]982b[gf] lineage, pursuing ancient meanings and respecting the style of the Tang people. Huang Gongwang once said that Wang Meng "is a god of heaven, and his Hanmo penetrates into the Jin and Han dynasties". "Jin and Han" is a bit exaggerated, but the famous masters of the Tang Dynasty, the Five Dynasties, and the Northern Song Dynasty are all the objects of his pursuit, especially Wang Wei.
Wang Meng's friend Chen Weiyin once said that Wang Meng's "predecessor must have been Wang Majie (Wang Wei), and Huanghuxi Mountain is like a rim river." The people of the Ming Dynasty also said that Wang Meng was"Reincarnation of Wang Wei".。Whether it's penmanship or experience, the two have some special connections. Wang Wei is considered to be the originator of literati painting, but looking at the ups and downs of his life, from the young ambition to the career is not smooth, the middle-aged real estate in the Rim River, into the state of half-office and half-hidden, and then to the Anshi Rebellion was captured and forced to accept the false position, although the career rose against the trend in his later years, but finally lived in the mood of repentance and self-blame. The experience and mood of this are quite similar to Wang Meng, and it is no wonder that there is a feeling of kinship when he writes down.
Dong Qichang's "Essay on Painting Zen Room" commented,Wang Meng's paintings are all imitations of the Tang and Song dynasties, if Dong (Yuan), Ju (Ran), Li (Cheng), Fan (Kuan), Wang Wei, can be similar, if in the work of carving, Yuan Ji should be the first".。This is quite high and quite accurate. Wang Meng's personality contradictions are reflected in the pen and ink, that is, the dense and complex mountains and rivers, the impermeable layout, and the lush and deep atmosphere, revealing his inner struggle everywhere behind it. While others pursue the emptiness and simplicity of the picture, he creates a world of "reality" and "fullness".
Wang Meng, "Taibai Mountain" (detail). Source: Internet.
In terms of techniques, Wang Meng has mastered dozens of predecessorsStrict law, and apply it to his own paintings. The method is the expression technique of traditional Chinese painting, which is used to express the texture of the bark of the mountain stone, among them, the method of the mountain stone mainly includes the flax, the raindrop, the unraveling, the cow hair, the folded belt, the large and small axe splitting, etc., and the law of the skin of the tree body has scales, ropes, horizontals, etc., which are named after their respective shapes. In order to express the dense and profound painting, Wang Meng created it on the basis of the linen of his predecessorsUnravelingwithCow hair, conveying a strange and deep texture, which has a great influence on later generations and has been used to this day.
Although they are all within the scope of landscape painting, Wang Meng's landscapes have undergone earth-shattering changes. As Gao Juhan wrote in "Mountains Across the River": "In Wang Meng's works throughout his life, there is no significant change in the characters and buildings, the same women always lean on the threshold, the same men either sit in fishing boats, or sit under the same thatched huts and open pavilions to read, perhaps even the same books, but the landscape surrounding the characters is brewing earth-shattering changes." It is not the embellishment and decoration of the scenery that makes Wang Meng's paintings vivid and appreciable, but the landscape itself. ”
Qing Bian Seclusion is considered to be one of Wang Meng's masterpieces, it should be said that this painting is the most reclusive picture of Wang Meng's works - only two figures appear in the whole picture, one is walking with a cane at the foot of the mountain, and the other is sitting on the bed in the thatched hut in the mountain col, so the quiet atmosphere is indeed suitable for seclusion. However, the characters are quiet, but the landscape is not. The main mountain scene in the painting originates from Bian Mountain (also known as Benshan) in Wang Meng's hometown of Wuxing, but it has obviously undergone Wang Meng's artistic processing, so that at first glance, the mountain is like a dragon vein, but it is full of hideousness and weirdness.
Wang Meng's "Qingbian Seclusion". Source: Internet.
This style of landscape painting, which makes the viewer feel uncomfortable in the heart, is very reminiscent of another famous work, Guo Xi's "Early Spring" in the Northern Song Dynasty. "Qingbian Seclusion" is indeed deeply influenced by "Early Spring" in terms of layout and technique, and even the intention is the same.
Guo Xi's "Early Spring". Source: Internet.
In "Early Spring", Guo Xi swings the picture with a strong sense of instability and gratitude, which coincided with the beginning of the reform led by Song Shenzong, so the painting is considered to symbolize the early spring of the imperial reform. Wang Meng's painting "Qingbian Seclusion Map" was in the twenty-sixth year of Zhizheng (1366), when his hometown Wuxing was caught in the military competition between Zhang Shicheng and Zhu Yuanzhang, the signal of instability in the south of the Yangtze River was already very obvious, and the seclusion at this time was just a luxury, so although it was called "Seclusion Map", the whole picture was full of unstable atmosphere.
From an artistic point of view, Dong Qichang called this painting"Spirited, vertical and horizontal, Shishanqiao (Wang Meng) is the first proud landscape in his life".。Gao Juhan also said that this is a flash of creative talent, but it can not be repeated, and even Wang Meng cannot repeat it. He believes that this painting has an expressionist color, which is turbulent, mysterious, unconventional, and unsettling. This unease, which may have something to do with the ongoing war, is the projection of the chaotic world from the outside in the artist's work. Abandoning the established formula of landscape painting and breaking the habitual expectations of viewers is Wang Meng's innovation.
Historical data show that less than half a year after the completion of the "Qingbian Seclusion Map", Huzhou Road, to which Bian Shan belongs, was pocketed by Zhu Yuanzhang. A year later, the city of Suzhou was broken, Zhang Shicheng committed suicide, and Wang Meng escaped into the Yellow Crane Mountain.
Chen Chuanxi said in "The History of Chinese Landscape Painting" that Wang Meng extensively studied the painting methods of various schools before the Yuan Dynasty, and he accepted the influence of Zhao Meng[gf]982b[gf], especially the painting methods of Dong Yuan, Ju Ran and Guo Xi, but eventually broke away from them, and formed his own appearance of painting mountains and mountains, thousands of rocks and thousands of ravines, and complex and gloomy. Among the "Four Yuan Families", Wang Meng's techniques are the most comprehensive, proficient, and diverse. However, Chen Chuanxi had reservations about Wang Meng's repeated horizontal jumps between Shi and Yin, and admired Ni Zhan, a recluse who had no distractions, believing that Wang Meng's paintings were higher than Ni Zan in terms of technique and hard work, but their influence and deep impression were lower than Ni ZanThe high level of talent and achievement is not in the suffering of skill, but in the mind and feelings
Wang Meng, "Guanshan Xiao Temple" (detail). Source: Internet.
Two years after painting "Qingbian Seclusion", the Ming Dynasty was established, and Wang Meng, who was "more open-minded and sentimental than Ni Zhan", was ready to move in the Yellow Crane Mountain again.
Although he is over sixty years old, Wang Meng is still obsessed with going out, and as he grows older, he has a sense of anxiety in his heart that "time is not waiting for me". Regarding whether to go out of the Ming Dynasty, his friends Yang Ji, Yang Weizhen and others were opposed, but Wang Meng did not listen to persuasion, so the process of his departure from the mountain this time was very funny:
Huang He refused to care, and Changming turned around. Lu Feng Tielongjun (referring to Yang Weizhen), the reason for it. Long Jun did not stop persuading, but he actually touched Long Jun's anger. Holding the yellow crane's clothes, drunk and living with the yellow crane. The yellow crane did not dare to go, and flew around the three-flower tree. In the middle of the night, the iron dragon was drunk and couldn't wake up, and the yellow crane flew nowhere.
Yang Kee's "Song of the Yellow Crane" (excerpt).
It means that friends advised Wang Meng not to go out, but Wang Meng didn't listen, "Changming turned around". In the end, Yang Weizhen was furious, pulled his clothes with the strength of wine, and scolded him, so that Wang Meng didn't dare to move. However, in the second half of the night, Yang Weizhen was already drunk and unconscious, and Wang Meng took the opportunity to escape.
This time, Wang Meng stayed away from Jiangnan and went north to Tai'an, Shandong to serve as the prefect. The time to be out of office is not long, according to the record of "Ming Painting" is three years, just enough to complete a masterpiece-"Dai Zong Mi Xue Tu".
It is said that when Wang Meng ruled Tai'an, he could see Mount Tai in his residence, and he was so happy that he faced Mount Tai and painted on silk, "where it was painted in three years". My friend Chen Weiyun (Chen Weiyin's brother) was an official in Jinan at the time, and once went to visit Wang Meng, Wang Meng showed the painting. When it snows heavily, the mountain scenery becomes more and more wonderful, Chen Weiyun said: "How about changing this painting to a snow scene?" Subsequently, Chen Weiyun "used a small bow to carry chalk to play", and the powder fell on the silk and suddenly became a snow scene. The two looked at each other, both amazed at the collaboration. Wang Meng then inscribed the painting: Daizong Mixue Map.
When Chen Weiyun was leaving, Wang Meng gave him the painting. Since then, Chen Weiyun's descendants have treasured this painting for a hundred years, and sold it to Jiaxing calligrapher and painter Yao Shou during the Chenghua period.
Three years after Tai'an became an official, the history books do not record Wang Meng's whereabouts, and there is a high probability that he will return to Jiangnan. "History of the Ming Dynasty" said,Wang Meng "tasted Hu Weiyong's private affairs, and participated in the meeting of Guo Chuan and the monk Zhicong to view the painting"., it can be known that he once set foot in Nanjing, and with his painting name, he established a certain personal relationship with Hu Weiyong and other high-level officials of the empire.
But as Zhu Yuanzhang's rule became more stable, the iron-blooded emperor with a political habit began to purify the political ranks of the dynasty, starting with a group of Jiangnan scribes, especially those who had served in Zhang Shicheng's regime.
The first thing that happened was exactlyChen Weiyun。The historical records are more vague, only saying that "sitting on the matter was killed", and the specific thing is not said, and the time is about the fourth year of Hongwu (1371). Chen Weiyun is worthy of being a "painting idiot" who once cooperated with Wang Meng, and before his execution, he "painted calmly". Then, the group of people known as the "Four Masters of Wuzhong" and "Ten Friends of Beiguo" were also recruited one after anotherGao Qi, Yang Ji, Xu BenAll of them died unexpectedly. What these people have in common is that they were in the Zhang Shicheng regime. One of the most embarrassing is Yang Ji, he and Yang Weizhen together persuaded Wang Meng not to be an official of the Ming Dynasty, in fact, he himself has been an official of the Ming Dynasty, and later returned to Shanxi as an envoy, but was slandered and robbed, punished with hard labor, and died of exhaustion.
Portrait of Gao Qi. Source: Internet.
And Ni Zhan, who has always stayed away from politics and persuaded Wang Meng to be a "smoke wave fisherman", finally failed to escape the prison of the Ming Dynasty. Shortly after his release from prison, in November of the seventh year of Hongwu (1374), he died of illness. I don't know where Wang Meng, who learned the bad news, was at that time and how he felt. Although the ambitions are very different and the painting style is very different, the arrogant Ni Zan has always admired Wang Meng and did not hesitate to give the highest praise:
The pen is fine and the king of the right army, and he is full of Shaowen.
The princely pen can carry the tripod, and there has been no such king in five hundred years.
Ni Zhan's "Wang Shuming Painting".
Compare Wang Meng to a saint of booksWang Xizhiand the earliest author of landscape painting in ChinaZong Bing, this evaluation is like Huang Gongwang saying that Wang Meng "went deep into the Jin and Han Dynasties", whether it is too good is another matter, but sympathy is certain. Therefore, Ni Zhan's death must be the pain of losing his acquaintance forever for Wang Meng.
Just when old friends withered in the cruel political environment, and the active literati circle in Suzhou fell into a slaughter, Wang Meng also came to the same end. Maybe he had expected this day, but he didn't know what form it would take.
In the thirteenth year of Hongwu (1380), Prime Minister Hu Weiyong was killed for treason, and Zhu Yuanzhang took advantage of this case to hunt down Hu Dang. Wang Meng was implicated because he had entered Hu Weiyong's house to enjoy paintings, and ** was imprisoned. After five years in prison, he finally died of illness in prison, and an era came to an end.
In his later years, Wang Meng had a "Hidden Picture of Fishing in Huaxi", with peach blossoms on both sides of the river, fishermen fishing, cottages, and villages at the foot of the mountains, all of which are classic scenes of seclusion, and there are no more perverse and manic images. At this time, his state of mind was indifferent, but it was also desperate:
The young heroes know who is there, and the white-haired smoke wave is free.
The glory of eternity is like a dream, and the smile will be blue-eyed to the sand gulls.
Wang Meng's "Hidden Picture of Huaxi Fishing". Source: Internet.
Wang Meng, "Hidden Picture of Huaxi Fishing" (detail). Source: Internet.
Chinese landscape painting has a development process from "nothing" to "being", from the state of the Northern Song Dynasty painters who paid attention to objective external objects and diluted the self, and gradually shifted to the Yuan Dynasty painters who paid attention to the self-expression of painting and emotion. As Li Zehou said in "The Course of Beauty".The landscape of the Northern Song Dynasty is "the realm of no self", and the landscape of the Yuan Dynasty is "the realm of me".The artist's subjective emotions are more directly expressed in the paintings. Among them,"Zijiu (Huang Gongwang) has its quietness, Ni Yu (Ni Zhan) has its transcendence, Wang Meng has its spirit, and Mei Daoren (Wu Zhen) has its wonderful"., the four of them each have their own merits and go down in history.
Mingren Wang Shizhen's "Art Garden Dialect" cloud:"The landscape is big, and the small Li has changed; Jing, Guan, Dong, and Ju have changed again; Li Cheng and Fan Kuan have changed again; Liu, Li, Ma, and Xia have changed again; The big idiot and the yellow crane have changed again. ”In the Tang Dynasty, Li Sixun, Li Zhaodao and his son, in the early Song Dynasty, Jing Hao, Guan Tong, Dong Yuan, and Ju Ran, in the Northern Song Dynasty, Li Cheng and Fan Kuan, in the Southern Song Dynasty, Liu Songnian, Li Tang, Ma Yuan, and Xia Gui, and in the Yuan Dynasty, Huang Gongwang and Wang Meng. As the last turning point in the history of landscape painting, Wang Meng's status can be seen.
As Zheng Wei said in the book "History of Chinese Painting": "The achievements of the four Yuan schools in the development of Chinese painting art, from the perspective of change, are quite similar to the status of the Impressionists in the middle and late stages of European painting." It transforms from a very scientific pursuit of truth to the expression of the painter's affection, so that the natural beauty and the painter's spiritual beauty are integrated. The truth of the art of painting does not depend on natural objects, but it also does not lose the truth of the objects and becomes a pure and crystalline work of art. ”
In 1385, when Wang Meng died, Huang Gongwang and Wu Zhen had been dead for thirty years, and Ni Zhan, who was also a generation, had also died for ten years. "The world has hurt the past several times, and Yamagata is still pillowing the cold current", looking back, Wang Meng, who has been entangled, contradictory, and ** all his life, and the landscapes he wrote, how much like the elegy of the times, the last sound.
References:
Ming] Wang Shizhen: The Dialect of the Art Garden, Phoenix Publishing House, 2009.
Dong Qichang: Essays on Painting Zen Room, Zhejiang People's Fine Arts Publishing House, 2016.
Qing Dynasty] Zhang Tingyu et al., History of the Ming Dynasty, Zhonghua Book Company, 1974.
Chen Shizeng: History of Chinese Painting, People's Fine Arts Publishing House, 2019.
Pan Tianshou: History of Chinese Painting, The Commercial Press, 2019.
Fang Wen: Heart Prints: A Study on the Style and Structure of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy, Shanghai Painting and Calligraphy Publishing House, 2016.
Chen Chuanxi: History of Chinese Landscape Painting, Tianjin People's Fine Arts Publishing House, 2020.
Shi Shouqian: Mountains and Valleys: The History of Chinese Landscape Painting and the Audience, Shanghai Painting and Calligraphy Publishing House, 2019.
Zheng Wei: History of Chinese Painting, China Academy of Art Press, 2017.
Gao Juhan, Mountains Across the River: Yuan Dynasty Paintings (1279-1368), Life, Reading, New Knowledge, Joint Bookstore, 2009.
Li Zehou, The Course of Beauty, Tianjin Academy of Social Sciences Press, 2001.