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Description
T: Ch'i-hsien H: Pan-ch'ien, Pan-mu, Ch'ai-chang-jen, Yeh-i Born in K'un-shan, Chiangsu Province, Kung Hsien eventually became the leading I-min ("leftover subject") painter in Nanking. He died in poverty, never caring to promote himself or his paintings, and yet is considered to be the most famous of the Individualist group of "Eight Masters from Nanking." He is admired for closely following the Sung masters, yet creating exciting new pictorial expressions through innovative brushwork. His works are hauntingly beautiful renditions of a shadowy world. The brilliant and influential connoisseur and collector Chou Liang-kung (1612-1672) wrote in his famous treatise on paintings of this period, the Tu Hua Lu, "Kung Hsien was of an eccentric nature and found it difficult to associate with other people. As a painter he swept away the common mannerism (trodden path) and produced very deep and original works. He said of himself, "there has been nobody before me and there will be nobody after me." (Translation from Siren) "In an article I wrote on Kung Hsien I trace his style using various methods [all that was available to me then] showing how he begins with a linear manner adopted from Anhui and other masters of that time, then, affected by foreign pictures, adds light-and-shadow stippling or shading, so as to render volumetric masses. This painting must be from [his early period] around 1666-1667.Then [he goes into] his great middle period and a late period in which he produces more, and more quickly, dropping the careful stippling for the most part and working in fast-running line and dotting. The Kung Hsien handscroll [also in this exhibition], which has only a simple signature must be late [in his work]. The Willow Dwelling [hanging immediately to the left of this scroll] with calligraphy is probably also fairly late. All the way through he avoids the proper brushwork of the Orthodox masters and uses brush techniques that get him condemned for "bad brushwork". . . And his high reputation now is a modern thing, same as Shih-t'ao and others."
Type
image
Format
Painting Hanging scroll: ink on satin China h 61 -1/4 x w 19 -1/2 inches
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