Poetic Feeling in A Thatched Pavilion Attributed To The Chinese Y

University of Iowa
Iowa Research Online

Theses and Dissertations
2013
Poetic feeling in a thatched pavilion attributed to

the Chinese Yuan artist Wu Zhen
Sicong Zhu
University of Iowa
Copyright 2013 Sicong Zhu

This dissertation is available at Iowa Research Online: http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/4983
Recommended Citation
Zhu, Sicong. "Poetic feeling in a thatched pavilion attributed to the Chinese Yuan artist Wu Zhen." MA (Master of Arts) thesis,
University of Iowa, 2013.
http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/4983.
Follow this and additional works at: http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd

Part of the History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons
POETIC FEELING IN A THATCHED PAVILION ATTRIBUTED TO THE

CHINESE YUAN ARTIST WU ZHEN
by
Sicong Zhu
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the
Master of Arts degree in Art History
in the Graduate College of
The University of Iowa
December 2013
Thesis Supervisor: Associate Professor Robert Rorex
Copyright by
SICONG ZHU
2013
All Rights Reserved
Graduate College
The University of Iowa
Iowa City, Iowa
CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL
_________________________
MASTERS THESIS
____________
This is to certify that the Masters thesis of
Sicong Zhu
has been approved by the Examining Committee
for the thesis requirement for the Master of Arts
degree in Art History at
the December 2013 graduation.
Thesis Committee: ___________________________
Robert Rorex, Thesis Supervisor
___________________________
Dorothy Johnson
___________________________
Wallace Tomasini
To my parents, Lihua Leng and Xiaogang Zhu
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am especially thankful to Professor Robert Rorex, my advisor and MA thesis
committee chair who offered me a lot of valuable advices not only on my thesis in
particular, but also on the proper and efficient ways to do research on dynastic Chinese
art in general. I am also very thankful to Professor Dorothy Johnson, whose 19-century
art classes and whose suggestions on my papers and thesis offered me significant
inspiration and direction during the two-year process of my art history study in Iowa City,
and to Professor Wallce Tomasini, whose viewpoints on Chinese art from the perspective
of a Renaissance scholar provided me very interesting insights and enlightment, and
whose constant support and encouragement as a senior scholar and graduate advisor of
the Art History Department helped me through many difficult moments in my study.
I also owe a lot of thanks to Professor Joan Stanley-Baker, whose monograph Old
Masters Repainted: Wu Zhen, 1280-1354: Prime Objects and Accretions (Hong Kong:
Hong Kong University Press, 1995) which I encountered in 2011 opened my eyes to the
field of connoisseurship study in Chinese art and initiated my interest to study Wu Zhen
in my MA thesis.
Sincere thanks goes to Professor Qingsheng Zhu, my advisor in college and the one
who brought me into the world of art history with his intellectually stimulating classes
and his gentle and humble personality as an art historian.
I thank my parents who supported me in studying art history and in pursuing my
graduate study in the United States. I thank them so much for their unfailing love and
tolerance all these years, for their understanding and open-mindedness not only as parents,
but as trustworthy friends.
iii
I also want to thank my husband and my best friend Renyu Zhang, whose constant
love and enduring patience has always been my great comfort, and without whom this
thesis would not have been possible.
Most of all, I thank my Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, who is my hope and
cornerstone, and whose love and faithfulness accompanied me through all my dark times.
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES.....
vi
LIST OF GLOSSARY AND CHINESE TEXTS........ xvi

INTRODUCTION.
Literature Review.. 2
CHAPTER
I. POETIC FEELING IN A THATCHED PAVILION..
About the Handscroll.. 9

Inscriptions, Calligraphy and Sealing. 12
Visual Analysis... 26
II. POETIC FEELING IN A THATCHED PAVILION IN THE TRADITION OF
GARDEN PAINTING................................................................................... 39
III. CONCLUSION
45
APPENDIX
A. A SHORT BIOGRAPHY OF WU ZHEN.
48
B. DOCUMENTED WU ZHEN STYLE...
51
C. AN INTRODUCTION TO CHINESE LANDSCAPE PAINTINGS.
63
D. ILLUSTRATIONS..
73
BIBLIOGRAPHY.... 164
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure D 1 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion, dated
1347. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. .................................... 73
Figure D 2 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), inscription of Poetic Feeling in a Thatched
Pavilion, dated 1347. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. ........... 74
Figure D 3 Wu Zhen, Fishermans Idyll, 1342. Palace Museum, Taipei. Inscription. ..... 75
Figure D 4 Wu Zhen, Bamboo and Rock, 1347. Palace Museum, Taipei. Inscription.
................................................................................................................... 76
Figure D 5 Wu Zhen, Twin Junipers, 1328. National Palace Museum, Taipei.
Inscription and signature. .......................................................................... 77
Figure D 6 Wu Zhen, Central Mountain (or Mountain among Mountains), National
Palace Museum, Taipei. Inscription and seal............................................ 78
Figure D 7 Zhao Mengfu, Autumn Colours on the Qiao and Hua Mountains, detail
of inscription, 1295. National Palace Museum, Taipei. ............................ 79
Figure D 8 Wang Hui. Snowy Studio in a Mountain Village after Wang Youcheng.
1674-77. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Detail of
inscription. ................................................................................................ 80
Figure D 9 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), the character gou in the inscription of Poetic
Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion, dated 1347. The Cleveland Museum
of Art, Cleveland. ...................................................................................... 80
Figure D 10 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), the character duan in the inscription of
Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion, dated 1347. The Cleveland
Museum of Art, Cleveland. ....................................................................... 81
Figure D 11 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), the character qing (clear) in the inscription
of Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion, dated 1347. The
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. ..................................................... 81
Figure D 12 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), the character gong in the inscription of
Museum of Art, Cleveland. ....................................................................... 82
vi
Figure D 13 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), the character qing (emotion) in the

inscription of Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion, dated 1347.
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. .............................................. 83
Figure D 14 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), the character he in the inscription of Poetic
of Art, Cleveland. ...................................................................................... 83
Figure D 15 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), the character sha in the inscription of Poetic
of Art, Cleveland. ...................................................................................... 84
Figure D 16 Wu Zhen (attributed to), 1st leaf of Manual of Bamboo in Monochrome
Ink, dated 1350. Album leaf, ink on paper, 41.3x52 cm. National
Palace Museum, Taipei. ............................................................................ 84
Figure D 17 Wu Zhen (attributed to), leaf 17 jing shen zhu yi (the bamboos in a
deep alley) of Manual of Bamboo in Monochrome Ink, dated 1350.
Album leaf, ink on paper, 41.3x52 cm. National Palace Museum,
Taipei. ....................................................................................................... 85
Figure D 18 Wu Zhen (attributed to), leaf 19 qing feng wu bai gan (500 bamboos in
clear wind) of Manual of Bamboo in Monochrome Ink, dated 1350.
Album leaf, ink on paper, 41.3x52 cm. National Palace Museum,
Taipei. ....................................................................................................... 86
Figure D 19 Wu Zhen (attributed to), characters zhu and fang in leaf 20 xuan
miao guan zhu (the bamboos in the Xuanmiao Temple) of Manual of
Bamboo in Monochrome Ink, dated 1350. Album leaf, ink on paper,
41.3x52 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei. ........................................ 87
Figure D 20 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), the character zhu and fang in the
Figure D 21 Wu Zhen (attributed to), the characters mei, fang, and wei in
Bamboo and Rock, 1347. National Palace Museum, Taipei. .................... 88
Figure D 22 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), the character mei, fang and wei in the
vii
Figure D 23 Wu Zhen (attributed to), the characters nian, yue, shu and the
phrase xi zuo in Central Mountain, 1366. National Palace
Museum, Taipei. Detail of artists seals.................................................... 89
Figure D 24 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), the character nian, yue, shu and the
phrase xi zuo in the inscription of Poetic Feeling in a Thatched
Pavilion, dated 1347. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. ........... 90
Figure D 25 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), inscription (the characters nian and zuo) of
Twin Junipers, dated 1328. Hanging scroll, ink on silk, 180.1 x 11.4
cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei. ...................................................... 91
Museum of Art, Cleveland. Detail of artists seals. .................................. 92
Figure D 27 Wu Zhen (attributed to), inscription of Fisherman Recluse on Lake
Dongting, dated 1341. Hanging scroll, ink on paper, 146.4x58.6 cm.
National Palace Museum, Taipei. ............................................................. 93
Figure D 28 Wu Zhen, detail of inscription (the phrases Zhizheng, xi zuo and
the character mei) of Fishermans Idyll, 1342. Hanging scroll, ink
on silk, 176.1x95.6 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei. ...................... 94
1347. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. Detail of artists
seals. .......................................................................................................... 95
Figure D 30 Wu Zhen (attributed to), Central Mountain, 1366. National Palace
Figure D 31 Wu Zhen (attributed to), Bamboo and Rock, 1347. National Palace
Figure D 32 Wang Meng (1308-1385), detail of Bamboo Cottage by Lake
Tai/Retreat at Ju-qu, not dated. 68.7x42.5 cm, ink and color on
paper. National Palace Museum, Taipei. .................................................. 98
Figure D 33 Zhao Mengfu, The Mind Landscape of Xie Youyu, ca. 1287.
Handscroll, ink and colors on silk, 27.4 x 117.0 cm. Princeton Art
Museum, Princeton. .................................................................................. 98
viii
Figure D 34 Ni Zan, detail of Panoramic View of the Lion Grove Garden, 1373.
Handscroll. Repository unknown.............................................................. 99
Figure D 35 Wen Zhengming, detail of East Garden, 1530. Handscroll, ink and
color on silk, 30.2 x 126.4cm. Palace Museum, Beijing. ....................... 100
Figure D 36 Xu Ben, the Lion Grove Garden (shi zi lin). Album leaf, ink on paper,
22.5 x 27.1 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei. ................................. 101
Figure D 37 Wen Zhengming, Garden of the Inept Administrator (Zhuozheng Yuan
tu shi), leaf D, 1551. Album leaf, ink on paper, 26.4 x 27.3 cm. The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. .............................................. 102
Figure D 38 Qian Gu, The Small and Tranquil Garden (xiao zhi yuan). Album leaf,
ink and color on paper, 28.5 x 39.1 cm, from the album Travel
Sketches (Ji xing tu ce). National Palace Museum, Taipei. .................... 103
Figure D 39 Wu Zhen, detail of fisherman in Fisherman (Lutan diaoting), ca. 1350.
Handscroll, ink on paper, 24.8 x 43.2 cm. The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York. .................................................................... 104
Figure D 40 Zhao Mengfu (1254-1322), detail of Autumn Color on the Qiao and
Hua Mountains, not dated. Handscroll, ink and color on paper, 24.8
x 93.2 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei. ......................................... 105
Figure D 41 Zhao Mengfu, detail of River Village: Fishermans Joy, 1279-1322.
Fan painting mounted as album leaf, ink and color on silk, 28.6cm x
30cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. ................................. 106
1347. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. Detail of pavilion. .... 107
Figure D 43 Wu Zhen, Fishermans Idyll, 1342. National Palace Museum, Taipei.
Detail of thatched gate. ........................................................................... 107
Figure D 44 Wu Zhen (attributed to), Fisherman after Jing Hao, dated 1342. Freer
Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. Detail of pavilion. .............................. 108
Figure D 45 Wu Zhen (attributed to), Fishermen (Liu Zongyuan Zhuan Yufutujuan),
Shanghai Museum of Art, Shanghai. Detail of pavilion. ........................ 109
Figure D 46 Ni Zan, detail of pavilion in Rongxi Studio, 1372. Hanging scroll, ink
on paper, 74.7 x 35.5 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei. ................. 110
ix
Figure D 47 Ni Zan, Rongxi Studio, 1372. Hanging scroll, ink on paper, 74.7 x 35.5
cm, National Palace Museum, Taipei. .................................................... 111
Figure D 48 Chu Te-juns Playing the Chin beneath Pines. National Palace
Museum, Taipei. ..................................................................................... 112
Figure D 49 Xiang Yuanbian (attributed), River Landscape, dated 1578.
Figure D 50 Tang Yin, The Thatched Hut of Dreaming of an Immortal, early 16th
century. The Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. ............................ 113
Figure D 51 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), Twin Junipers, dated 1328. Hanging scroll, ink
on silk, 180.1 x 11.4 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei. .................. 114
Figure D 52 Wu Zhen (1280-1354, attributed to), left part of Mountain among
Mountains, dated 1336. Handscroll, ink on paper, 26.4 x 90.7 cm.
National Palace Museum, Taipei. ........................................................... 115
Figure D 53 Wu Zhen, Fishermans Idyll, 1342. Hanging scroll, ink on silk.
Figure D 54 Wu Zhen (attributed to), Fisherman (Lutan Diaoting), ca. 1350.
Handscroll, ink on paper, 24.8 x 43.2 cm. The Metropolitan
Figure D 55 Wu Zhen (attributed to), Spring Dawn on a Clear River, undated.
National Palace Museum of Art, Taipei. ................................................ 118
Figure D 56 Wu Zhen (attributed to), Painting of Latter Ode on the Red Cliff,
undated. National Palace Museum, Taipei. ............................................ 119
Shanghai Museum of Art, Shanghai. ...................................................... 120
Figure D 58 Wu Zhen (attributed to), Fishermen after Jing Hao (section 1 and 2),
ca. 1342. Handscroll, ink on paper, 32.5 x 565.6 cm. The Freer
Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. ........................................................... 121
x
Figure D 61 Wu Zhen, detail of Bamboo and Rock, 1347. Hanging scroll, ink on
paper, 90.6 x 42.5 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei. ...................... 124
Figure D 62 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), detail of Twin Junipers, dated 1328. Hanging
scroll, ink on silk, 180.1 x 11.4 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei.
................................................................................................................. 125
Figure D 63 Wu Zhen (1280-1354, ascribed to), detail of Mountain among
Mountains, not dated. Handscroll, ink on paper, 26.4 x 90.7 cm.
Figure D 64 Wu Zhen (1280-1354, ascribed to), detail of Autumn Mountains.
Hanging scroll, ink on silk, 150.9 x 103.8 cm. National Palace
Museum, Taipei. ..................................................................................... 127
Figure D 65 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), detail of Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion,
dated 1347. Hanging scroll, ink on paper, 23.8cm x 99.4cm. The
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. ................................................... 128
Figure D 66 Wu Zhen (1280-1354), detail of Spring Dawn on a Clear River,
Hanging scroll, ink and light color on silk, 114.7x100.6 cm.
Figure D 67 Wu Zhen (1280-1354), detail of Hermit Fisherman on an Autumn
River, not dated. Hanging scroll, ink on silk, 189.1x88.5 cm.
Figure D 68 Li Gonglin, detail of Gathering at the West Garden, 1080. Handscroll,
ink on paper, 26.5 406cm. Unknown repository. ................................ 130
Figure D 69 Wang Fu, one section of the Study by Lake Tai at the Foot of a Hill
(hu shan shu wu), 1410. Handscroll, ink on paper, 27.5 x 820.5 cm.
Liaoning Provincial Museum, Shenyang. ............................................... 130
Figure D 70 Du Qiong (1396-1474), one section of Befriending the Pines (you song
tu). Handscroll, ink and color on paper, 28.8 x 92.5cm. Palace
Museum, Beijing. .................................................................................... 131
xi
Figure D 71 Qiu Ying (ca. 1494-1552), Orchid Pavilion. Fan painting, blue and
green on gold dusted paper, 21.5 x 31.2cm. Palace Museum, Beijing.
................................................................................................................. 131
Figure D 72 Qiu Ying, detail of Garden for Self-Enjoyment, 1515-1552. Handscroll,
ink and slight color on silk, 27.8 x 381 cm. Cleveland Museum of
Art, Cleveland. ........................................................................................ 132
Figure D 73 Wen Zhengming, detail of Tea Party at Mount. Hui, 1518. Handscroll,
ink and color on paper, 21.9 x 67cm. Palace Museum, Beijing. ............ 133
Figure D 74 Wen Zhengming, detail of Purification Ritual at the Orchid Pavilion,
1542. Handscroll, ink and color on gold dusted paper, 24.2 x 60.1cm.
Palace Museum, Beijing. ........................................................................ 134
Figure D 75 Obstructive scene made through the Taihu rock, Gate of Benevolence
and Longevity (Renshou men), Summer Palace, Beijing. ...................... 135
Figure D 76 Qu Ding (attributed to, active ca. 1023-1056), detail of Summer
Mountains. Handscroll, ink and light color on silk, 44.1 x 116.8 cm.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. ....................................... 136
Figure D 77 Zhang Zeduan, detail of Spring Festival on the River (Qingming shang
he tu), early 12th century. Handscroll, in and color on silk, 25.5 x
525 cm. Palace Museum, Beijing. .......................................................... 136
Figure D 78 Qian Xuan, detail of Wang Xizhi Watching Geese, ca. 1295.
Handscroll, ink, color and gold on paper, 23.2 x 92.7 cm. The
Figure D 79 Xia Yuan, detail of The Yellow Pavilion, ca. 1350. Album leaf, ink on
silk, 20.6 x 26.7 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. ..... 138
Figure D 80 Leng Mei, the Mountain Resort in Chengde (bi shu shan zhuang tu),
1713. Hanging scroll, ink and color on silk, 254.8 x 172.5cm. Palace
Museum, Beijing. .................................................................................... 139
Figure D 81 Wang Yun, one section of Xiu Garden, 1715-1720. Handscroll, ink
and color on silk, 54 x 1294.9 cm.The Lvshun Museum, Dalian,
China. ...................................................................................................... 140
xii
Figure D 82 Anonymous, right half of View of a Garden Villa, after Yuan Jiang
(active ca.1680-ca.1730), 18th century. Handscroll, ink and color on
silk, 52.1 x 295 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. ...... 140
Figure D 83 Tang Yifen, detail of Love Garden (Aiyuan tu), 1848. Handscroll, ink
and color on paper, 59 x 160 cm. The British Museum, London. .......... 141
Figure D 84 Shen Zhou (1427-1509), one leaf of East Village. Album leaf, ink and
color on paper, 28.6 x 33 cm. Nanjing Museum, Nanjing. ..................... 142
Figure D 85 Wen Zhengming, one leaf of Garden of the Inept Administrator
depicting the Small Flying Rainbow Bridge (xiao fei hong), dated
1551. Album leaf, ink on paper, 26.6 x 27.3 cm..................................... 143
Figure D 86 Sun Kehong, detail of Stone Table Garden, dated 1572. Handscroll,
ink and color on paper, 12 3/4 x 272 1/2 inches. Asian Art Museum
of San Francisco, San Francisco. ............................................................ 144
Figure D 87 Sun Kehong, detail of Stone Table Garden, dated 1572. Handscroll,
ink and color on paper, 12 3/4 x 272 1/2 inches. Asian Art Museum
of San Francisco, San Francisco. ............................................................ 145
Figure D 88 Zhang Fu (1546-ca. 1631), one leaf from West Grove. Album leaf, ink
and color on paper, 35 x 25 cm. Wuxi Museum, Wuxi, China. ............. 146
Figure D 89 Zhang Hong, Painting of Zhi Garden, 1627. Album leaf, ink and color
on paper, 32.39 x 34.29 cm. Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
Los Angeles. ........................................................................................... 147
on paper, 32.4 x 34.6 cm. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los
Angeles. .................................................................................................. 148
on paper, overall including mount: 38.7 x 43.8 cm. Los Angeles
County Museum of Art, Los Angeles. .................................................... 149
Figure D 92 Li Gonglin, one section of Gathering at the West Garden, 1080.
Handscroll, ink on paper, 26.5 406cm. Unknown repository. ............. 150
Figure D 93 Li Gonglin, detail of Gathering at the West Garden, 1080. Handscroll,
ink on paper, 26.5 406cm. Unknown repository. ................................ 151
xiii

dated 1347. Hanging scroll, ink on paper, 23.8cm x 99.4cm. The
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. ................................................... 152
Figure D 95 Guo Xi (1001-1090), Early Spring, not dated. 158.3 x 108.1 cm, ink
and color on silk. National Palace Museum, Taipei. .............................. 153
Figure D 96 Wang Meng (1308-1385), Bamboo Cottage by Lake Tai/Retreat at Juqu, not dated. 68.7x42.5 cm, ink and color on paper. National Palace
Museum, Taipei. ..................................................................................... 154
Figure D 97 Wang Meng (1308-1385), The Simple Retreat, not dated. 136 x 45 cm,
ink and color on paper. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York. ....................................................................................................... 155
Figure D 98 Guo Xi (1001-1090), Old Trees, Level Distance (Left section), not
dated. 35.6 x 104.4 cm, ink and color on silk. The Metropolitan
Figure D 99 Zhao Mengfu (1254-1322), Twin Pines, Level Distance, ca.1300. 26.8
x 107.5 cm, ink on paper. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York. ....................................................................................................... 156
Figure D 100 Xia Gui, Sailboat in Rainstorm, about 1189-94. Ink and light color on
silk, 23.9 x 25.1 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. .............................. 157
Figure D 101 Ni Zan, Woods and Valleys of Mount Y, dated 1372, upper section.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. ....................................... 158
Figure D 102 Zhao Mengfu, left section of Autumn Colors on the Qiao and Hua
Mountains, 1295. Handscroll, ink and color on paper, 24.8 x 93.2
cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei. .................................................... 159
Figure D 103 Dong Yuan (attributed to, d. 962), Wintry Trees by a Lake, not dated.
Hanging scroll, ink and color on silk, 178 x 115.4 cm. Kurokawa
Institute of Ancient Cultures, Nishinomiya, Japan. ................................ 160
Figure D 104 Xia Gui (active ca. 1195-1230), Mountain Market, Clear with Rising
Mist, 13th century. Album leaf, ink on silk, 24.8 x 21.3 cm. The
xiv
Figure D 105 Ma Yuan (active ca. 1190-1225), Scholar Viewing a Waterfall, late
12th century, early 13th century. Album leaf, ink and color on silk,
25.1 x 26 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. ................ 162
Figure D 106 Yujian, Mountain Market, Clear with Rising Mist, late Southern Song
and early Yuan dynasty. Handscroll, ink on paper, 33.182.8cm.
Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo. .......................................................... 163
Figure D 107 Muqi (late 13th century), Wild Geese on a Sandbank, late Southern
Song and early Yuan dynasty. Handscroll, ink on paper,
33.0109.5cm. Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo. ................................ 163
xv
LIST OF GLOSSARY AND CHINESE TEXTS

A
D
E
xvi
G
H ()
I
""
M
xvii
xviii
INTRODUCTION
In the following thesis, I intend to explore the textual, calligraphic and visual nature
of the handscroll Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion dated 1347 and ascribed to the
Chinese artist Wu Zhen (1280-1354), an important Chinese landscapist and bamboo
painter1 who lived in the Yuan dynasty, who was admired by later generations of
Chinese literati painters and connoisseurs as one of the four great masters of the Yuan
dynasty (together with Huang Gongwang, Ni Zan and Wang Meng), and who was the
relatively least intensively studied one among the four masters of Yuan2. A comparison
of Poetic Feeling in the Thatched Pavilion with other garden paintings will offer more
context for understanding the handscroll and its theme: literati gathering in a private
garden.
Although bearing the signature and seals associated with the name of an artist so
highly esteemed in later generations, the work (painting with colophon mounted as a
handscroll) has received relatively slight scholarly attention in recent times. The
following pages present my efforts to bring together what can be known about the scroll
from historical sources and the critical literature. In addition, the historical, cultural, and
artistic evidence presented by the scroll itself is described and analyzed. The question of
what place the work may occupy in the known body of work, and therefore the career, of
the artist Wu Zhen in the history of Chinese painting is also explored. The fundamental
The summation is borrowed from James Cahills PhD dissertation. See Cahill, James. Wu Chen, a
Chinese Landscapist and Bamboo Painter of the Fourteenth Century. PhD diss., University of Michigan,
1958.
2
For example, Wus name did not appear in the 17th century connoisseur Chang Ch'ous painting and
calligraphy catalogue Ch'ing ho shu-hua fang , while the other three masters (Huang Gongwang, Ni Zan
and Wang Meng) all found their place in it.
2
questions raised by scholarly inquiry and those appropriate to connoisseurship are thus
addressed, with evidence brought forth which may serve as a foundation for further
inquiry in the future.
Literature Review
Studies on Wu Zhen published in the 20th century include (in chronological order
within each category):
1) Researches on individual works or aspects of the Wu Zhen oeuvre: Wu Hufans
Wu Zhonggui yu fu tu juan [Wu Zhens Fisherman Handscroll] (Shanghai: Commercial
Press, 1936), William Lews The fisherman in Yuan painting and literature as reflected
Wu Chen's Yu-Fu T'u in the Shanghai Museum (PhD diss., Ohio University, 1976), Wu
Hufans Wu Zhen Yu fu tu [Wu Zhens Fisherman Handscroll] (Taipei: Taiwan
Commercial Press, 1977), Jiang Zhaoshens
fisherman on Lake Tung-ting (T
tei gyoin
[The handscroll Hermit
Nigensha, 1980), Sungmii Lee Hans Wu Chen's
"Mo-chu pu" Literati Painter's Manual on In Bamboo (PhD diss., Princeton

University, 1983);
2) General and artistic biographies: Zheng Bingshans Wu Zhen (Shanghai:
Shanghai Peoples Fine Arts Publishing House, 1958), National Palace Museums The
Great Four Masters of the Yuan: Huang Gongwang, Wu Zhen, Ni Zan, Wang Meng
(Taibei: National Palace Museum, 1975), Hironobu Koharas
Go Shin [Huang Gongwang, Ni Zan, Wang Meng, Wu Zhen] (T
b , ei an,
y
Ch
K ronsha,
1979), Chen Qingguangs Yuan dai hua jia Wu Zhen [Wu Zhen the Yuan dynasty Painter]
(Taipei: National Palace Museum, 1983), Du Zhesen and Song Xiaoxias Wu Zhen
(Shanghai: Shanghai Painting and Calligraphy Press, 1999), Shou Qinzes Dan qing
3
sheng shou: Huang Gongwang, Wang Meng, Wu Zhen zhuan [Biographies of Huang
Gongwang, Wang Meng and Wu Zhen] (Hangzhou Zhejiang Peoples Publishing House,
2007), Yuan Jianxias Wu Zhen, Ni Zan (Zhengzhou Henan Peoples Fine Arts
Publishing House, 2011).
3) Anthologies of (attributed) Wu Zhen writings (poems, essays, inscriptions and
painting manuals): Ge Yuanxus Mei dao ren yi mo [Wu Zhens Posthumous Writings
(Shanghai: Ge shi xiao yuan, 1876), Wen Huzhou zhu pai [Tong Wens Bamboo Painting
School] (Shanghai: Shang wu yin shu guan, 1939), Meihuadaoren yi mo [Wu Zhens
Posthumous Writings] (Taibei: Taiwan xue sheng shu ju, 1970), Zhuang Shens Yuan ji si
hua jia shi jiao ji [Poetry of the Four Landscape Masters of the late Yuan Period] (Hong
Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong, 1973), Ying yin Wu Zhen zhu
pu [Photocopied Wu Zhens Bamboo Manual] (Taibei: Gu gong bo wu yuan, 1976),
Yuan Wu Zhen Xin jing (Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1977), Xu Bens
(1335-1393) Mei hua dao ren yi mo /bei guo ji [Ben Xus Collection of Wu Zhens
Posthumous Writings] (Taibei: Student Book, 1985), Zhao Yue and Duan Pings Wu
Zhen shi ci xuan zhu [Selected Annotations of Wu Zhen Poems] (Lanzhou: Gansu
Peoples Publishing House, 1992), Shanghai Boo store Publishing Houses Meidaoren yi
mo: 1 juan [Wu Zhens Posthumous Writings 1st Volumn] (Shanghai: Shanghai
Bookstore Publishing House, 1994);
4) Connoisseurship studies: Joan Stanley-Ba ers Old Masters Repainted: Wu Zhen,
1280-1354: Prime Objects and Accretions (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press,
1995).
Besides these studies on Wu Zhen, a number of catalogues are also dedicated to (or
4
include) Wu Zhens (attributed) wor s Lao Tianbis (edited) Yuan Wu Zhen shan shui
zhen ji [Authentic Landscapes of Wu Zhen of Yuan Dynasty] (Hong Kong: Xiao Su,
1963), Wai-kam Ho, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum
of Fine Arts, Cleveland Museum of Art et al, Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting: the
Collections of the Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, and the Cleveland
Museum of Art (Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana
University Press; Bloomington, Ind.: Distributed by Indiana University Press, 1980), Wu
Zhonggui mo zhu pu, Li Fangying mo lan ce, Jin Dongxin mo mei ce he ce [Combined
Leaves of Wu Zhens In Bamboo, Li Fangyings In Orchid, Jin Dongxins In Plums]
(Chengdu: Chengdu Ancient Books Publishing House, 1989), Yuan si jia hua ji: Huang
Gongwang Wu Zhen Ni Zan Wang Meng [Four Great Masters of the Yuan: Huang
Gongwang, Wu Zhen, Ni Zan, Wang Meng] (Tianjin Peoples Fine Arts Press, 1994), Mo
zhu pu tu [Leaves of Ink Bamboo Paintings] (Tianjin Tianjin Peoples Publishing House,
2007).
Among all these, monographs on Wu Zhens single or multiple wor s include:
James Cahills 1958 dissertation at the University of Michigan Wu Chen, a Chinese
Landscapist and Bamboo Painter of the Fourteenth Century, William Lews 1976
dissertation at Ohio University The fisherman in Yuan painting and literature as
reflected Wu Chen's Yu-Fu T'u in the Shanghai Museum, Sungmii Lee Hans 1983
dissertation at Princeton University Wu Chen's "Mo-chu pu" Literati Painter's Manual
on In Bamboo, and Joan Stanley-Ba ers 1995 boo Old Masters Repainted: Wu Zhen,
1280-1354: Prime Objects and Accretions (Hong Kong University Press).
In James Cahills dissertation, he pictured Wu Zhens biographical and artistic
5
career in general and outlined Wu Zhens landscape and bamboos paintings as his
specialty in particular. In William Lews dissertation, he particularly focused on the YuF T (attributed to Wu Zhen) as a reflection of the Yuan poetic and artistic ideal about
fisherman, a long-standing beloved topic of Chinese literati literature and paintings. In
Sungmii Lee Hans dissertation, she paid special attention to the images in Wu Zhens
(attributed to) ink bamboo manual. In Joan Stanley-Ba ers boo , she analyzed in detail
sixteen attributed Wu Zhen works (including landscapes and bamboo paintings) while
referring to the fifty-odd current attributions of Wu Zhen, and determined that only four
of these are from the hand of Wu Zhen (prime objects).
Among all these above-mentioned monographs on Wu Zhen, none of them
mentioned the handscroll Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion. It is understandable
since each of the three dissertations has a particular thematic focus. As for StanleyBa ers boo , she did not make a connoisseurial evaluation regarding Poetic Feeling in a
Thatched Pavilion since the number of ascribed Wu Zhen paintings is so great (The
National Palace Museum, Taipei, where most of Joan Stanley-Ba ers researches too
place, alone houses more than 70 pieces of paintings ascribed to Wu Zhen) that not every
work can be taken a close look at individually in terms of connoisseurship study.
The handscroll Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion has been recorded by several
Chinese connoisseurs and scholars since 1616. In Zhang Chous Qing he shu hua biao
(n.d.), the list of paintings and calligraphy works in the family collection of Zhang Chou,
the handscroll was recorded as part of his collection of Yuan works3; in Wang Luoyus
Shan hu wang (preface 1643), the handscrolls name, author as well as the first two
3
Zhang Chou (1577-1643), Qing he shu hua fang: wai si zhong (Shanghai: Shanghai gu ji chu ban she: Xin
hua shu dian Shanghai fa xing suo fa xing, 1991), 611.
6
inscriptions (from Wu Zhen and Shen Zhou respectively) are recorded4; in Pei wen zhai
shu hua pu (1702, commissioned by the Kangxi emperor of the Qing dynasty), the
handscroll was recorded as hua ting shi yi, a handscroll on paper made by Taoist Plum
Blossom5.
Since the 19th century, the handscroll also appeared in another eleven anthologies or
scholarly articles. In J. C. Fergusons Li dai zhu lu hua mu [recorded paintings in Chinese
history] (1934), the author presents the handscrolls recording history in various books
and the exact place where the handscroll appeared in each compilation (in Yu Fengqins
Yu Fengqing Shu hua ti ba ji, in Zhang Chous Qing he shu hua fang, in Wang Luoyus
Shan hu wang, in Zhang Chous Qing he shu hua biao, in the Kangxi emperorcommissioned Pei wen zhai shu hua pu, in Bian Yongyus Shi gu tang shu hua hui kao,
in Zhang Chous Zhen ji mu lu chu ji); in Zhu Xingzhais Zhong guo shu hua [Chinese
painting and calligraphy], the handscroll was chosen together with 37 other paintings and
calligraphy pieces from Tang to Qing dynasties all of which have undergone personal
examination of the editor (Zhu Xingzhai) at one time or other6 in order to present
selected works in Chinese paintings and calligraphy to art lovers of the world for their
study and appreciation7; in Sherman E. Lees Literati and Professionals Four Ming
Painters (1966), Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion was used to illustrate the single-
Wang, Luoyu (b. 1587), Shan hu wang (Taipei: Taiwan shang wu yin shu guan, 1968, volume 2, chapter
9), 919.
5
Sun Yueban, Pei wen zhai shu hua pu: 100 juan (Shanghai: Tong wen shu ju, 1883, volume 16, chapter
100), 6.
6
Zhu Xingzhai, Zhong guo shu hua [Chinese Painting and Calligraphy] (Hong Kong: Chinese Painting and
Calligraphy Press, 1961), index page.
7
Zhu Xingzhai, Zhong guo shu hua [Chinese Painting and Calligraphy] (Hong Kong: Chinese Painting and
Calligraphy Press, 1961), index page. The handscroll appeared on page 21.
7
stroke, brusque shorthand8 of Wu Zhen, from whom Wen Zhengming learned a lot; in
Handbook, the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978 (1978), the handscroll appeared in the
section on Chinese Art; in Fu Shens Traces of the Brush: Studies in Chinese
Calligraphy, the handscrolls inscription was used to demonstrate Wu Zhens cursive
script which is a painters calligraphy that lac s the professionals expertise9; in
Chinese Painting: An Escape from the
sty World (1981), Marjorie L. Williams
deployed Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion to illustrate Wu Zhens (as well as the
Chinese literatis) wish to live as a recluse away from the dusty world10; in William S.
Talbots Visions of Landscape East and West. (1983), Poetic Feeling in a Thatched
Pavilion acts as an example of the Chinese landscape whose natural detailing was not as
intense as the west11; in Masterpieces from East and West /The Cleveland Museum of
Art (1992), the handscroll appeared in the section on the east as a representative of
scholar-artists pursuit of conceptual visions through calligraphic line12; in Shouqian
Shis Cong Feng ge Dao Hua Yi: Fan si Zhongguo Mei shu Shi [from style to the idea of
painting: a reflection on Chinese art history] (2010), the author used the handscroll as
part of the Wu Zhen oeuvre to illustrate the hermit painters quiet life and his literati
Sherman E. Lee, Literati and Professionals Four Ming Painters, The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum
of Art 53, no. 1 (1966): 4.
9
Shen Fu, Marilyn W. Fu, Mary G. Neill, and Mary Jane Clark, Traces of the Brush: Studies in Chinese
Calligraphy (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1980), 87, 104.
10
Marjorie L. Williams, Chinese Painting: An Escape from the sty World (Cleveland, Ohio:
Cleveland Museum of Art; Bloomington, Ind.: Distributed by Indiana University Press, 1981), 53-56.
11
William S. Talbot, Visions of Landscape East and West, The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art
70, no. 3 (1983): 119.
12
Evan H. Turner and John Russell, Masterpieces from East and West/ The Cleveland Museum of Art (New
York, NY: Rizzoli International, 1992), 49.
8
painting style.13 14
13
Shouqian Shi, Cong feng ge dao hua yi: fan si Zhongguo mei shu shi [from style to the idea of painting: a
reflection on Chinese art history] (Taibei Shi: Shi tou chu ban, 2010), 192-193.
14
For the list of literature history see Wai-kam Ho, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary
Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Cleveland Museum of Art et al, Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting: the
Collections of the Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, and the Cleveland Museum of Art
(Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press; Bloomington,
Ind.: Distributed by Indiana University Press, 1980), 134.
CHAPTER I POETIC FEELING IN A THATCHED PAVILION

About the Handscroll
Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion (Figure 1), currently in the collection of the
Cleveland Museum of Art, is a handscroll attributed to the Yuan Dynasty landscape and
bamboo painter Wu Zhen, and a work that has received relatively little attention among
the attributed Wu Zhen oeuvre by modern scholarship15. Based on my interest in Wu
Zhen and the current status of research on Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion, I chose
this handscroll as my MA thesis topic.
Regarding the provenance of Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion, it was owned
successively by the Lees in Hong Kong and the Hos of Macau before it was brought by
someone in London to the United States16, and was purchased by the Cleveland Museum
of Arts Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund in 1963 from Chiang Er-shih (1913-1972), paintercollector and art dealer who came to the United States from China in the early 1960s17,
and has been ept in the Museums collection ever since. In terms of formal and
historical studies, it has served as visual evidence (but not the object in question) of
15
Two major works devoted to Wu Zhens works are James Cahills 1958 dissertation at the University of
Michigan, Wu Chen, a Chinese Landscapist and Bamboo Painter of the Fourteenth Century and Joan
Stanley-Bakers 1995 book Old Masters Repainted: Wu Zhen, 1280-1354: Prime Objects and Accretions
(Hong Kong University Press). However, both these studies did not mention Poetic Feeling in a Thatched
Pavilion.
16
For provenance history see Zhuang Shens Yuan ji si hua jia shi jiao ji [Poetry of the Four Landscape
Masters of the late Yuan Period] (Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong, 1973),
69.
17
James Cahill, Chiang Er-shih (From 7/18/07 letter to Hong Zaixin), July 18, 2007, Running Down Blog
(blog), http://jamescahill.info/the-writings-of-james-cahill/responses-a-reminiscences/163-41-chiang-ershih. Accessed July 5, 2013.
10
several pieces of scholarship18; in respect of connoisseurial inspection, this work has not
yet received specific attention from the academic world.
The handscroll is made of paper, with monochrome ink images. The height and
width of the handscroll are 23.80 cm (9 5/16 inches) and 99.40 cm (39 1/8 inches)
respectively (width including frontispiece, 1 inscription, 3 colophons and 35 seals19).
According to the inscription, the handscroll painting was composed in the seventh
year of Zhi-zheng (the third era name/reign title of Toghun Temr, Emperor Huizong,
11th emperor of Yuan dynasty, who ruled from 1333 to 1370), namely 1347.
In terms of the visual character of the painting, it agrees with the undecorative,
unrealistic, and often ambiguous in expression and ambivalent in feeling20 nature of
Yuan literati paintings. The representational aspect is largely diminished, and the playful
character of the literatis in play is revealed. Though the handscroll may loo clumsy or
amateurish upon first sight due to the seemingly less virtuoso brushwork displayed, it is
consistent with many other attributed Wu Zhen paintings and the Yuan literati painting
style. The size being small (23.8 x 99.4 cm) and the format intimate (a handscroll), the
painting presents itself more as a follower of the private garden painting tradition and
carries on the legacy of the Confucian scholars retreat from worldly concerns instead of
as representative of the Northern Song monumental landscape tradition. The thatched
pavilion is not only a building in the painting, but also a recurring motif in the history of
Chinese literati painting which acts as a haven for the literatis hermit life in the woods,
18
See for example, T.C. Wang, Wu Zhen's Poetic Inscriptions on Paintings, in Bulletin of The School of
Oriental and African Studies-University of London 64, no. 2 (2001): 208-239.
19
The inscription has been translated by Wai-kam Ho, who also identified the 3 colophons and 27 seals (6
seals still remain to be identified) on the handscroll. See http://www.clevelandart.org/art/1963.259.
20
Wen C. Fong, Beyond Representation: Chinese Painting and Calligraphy, 8th-14th Century (New York:
Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 431.
11
by the side of a hill or a lake and allows the literati to enjoy the company of nature,
cultivate his temperament, purify his morality and improve his literary and artistic
learning.
The title cao ting shi yi (poetic feeling in a thatched pavilion) composed in the
seal script by Li Dongyang (1447-1516) on the frontispiece suggests the theme of the
painting: literati enjoying the poetic meditation/conversation/company of each other in a
modest but romantic place far from the world.
The visual part of the handscroll depicts a thatched pavilion set on a stage-like
platform in the horizontal center between the foreground and the middle ground. Though
small in size in relation to the objects around it, the pavilion is safely surrounded yet not
crowded by groves of trees, rocks, and several cottages on a gentle slope, leaving
abundant space for the two literati in the pavilion to enter and exit the pavilion as well as
to take a walk in the paths between the pavilion and the natural environment, and
allowing the view to take an imaginative tour effortlessly from the beginning to the end
of the handscroll without losing his/her way.
The highly succinct nature of the brushwork reduces the mimetic character of the
painting to the lowest and as s for the viewers imagination, understanding of the
painting as an allegory of the hermit scholar, and comprehension of the inscription in
which the incentive, title and purpose of the handscroll is explained in detail.
12
Inscription, Calligraphy and Sealing

Inscription
The artists inscription is recorded in the following literature (in the chronological
order of composition): Wu, Zhen , and Qian Fen (late 17th century), Meidaoren
yi mo [Posthumous Writings of Taoist Plum Blossom] in Cong shu ji cheng
xu bian , Ji bu , Bie ji lei , vol. 109 (Shanghai: Shanghai shu
dian, 1994); Zhen Wu , and Sili Gu (1669-1722), Mei hua an gao: 1 juan [1
volume of Writings in the Hut of Plum Blossom] 1 (Suzhou: Changzhou
Gu shi Xiu ye cao tang, 1702); Bian Yongyu (1645-1712), Shi gu tang shu hua
hui kao [Assembled Shigu Hall Paintings and Calligraphies
Examination] (Wuxing: Jiang shi Mi jun lou cang ben: Jian gu shu she ying yin ren chen,
1922), volume 19; Yu Fengqing (17th century), Shu hua ti ba ji [Records of
Inscriptions on Paintings and Calligraphies] (Shanghai: Shen zhou guo
guang Press, 1911), volume 8; Wang Luoyu (b. 1587), Shan hu wang
(Taipei: Taiwan shang wu yin shu guan, 1983), volume 33.
The inscription, an essential component of a painting, is integral to the work in terms
of not only its literary content, but also its calligraphic merit. The erudite scholar-official
has been an ideal pursued by thousands of years of educated Chinese (from the 2nd to the
early 20th century), in the evaluation of whose political talent the mastery of the classic
Chinese prose and poems, history as well as philosophy weighs substantially21. Aside
21
A more detailed discussion see Patricia Eichenbaum Karetzky, Lehman College Art Gallery and Fisher
13
from the literary virtuosity, the calligraphic aptitude is also deemed crucial in picking out
the qualified intellectual officials and judging the self-cultivation of a scholar-official.
Since the 4th century, calligraphy rose to become an art in itself after the advent of the
earliest Chinese characters, the oracle bone script from 14th BC to 11th BC.
It gradually became a common practice to compose self-inscriptions on paintings
since the Southern Song and Yuan dynasty. Nevertheless, the self-fashioning function
of Chinese painting may have begun far earlier even than artists started to leave their
names on the painted surfaces on a regular basis: it began as early as the 4th century, with
the emergence of representational paintings22.
The inscription (Figure 2) of Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion has been
translated by Wai-kam Ho, Chinese art curator at Cleveland Museum of Art from 1959 to
1983, as follows:
By the side of the hamlet I built a thatched pavilion. Balanced and squared, it
is lofty in conception. The woods being deep, birds are happy; the dust being
distant, bamboos and pines are clean. Streams and rocks invite lingering enjoyment,
lutes and books please my temperament. How should I bid farewell to the world of
the ordinary and the familiar, and let my heart go its own way for the gratification
of my life? In the tenth month of winter, in ding-hai year, the seventh year of Chihcheng [1347], I did this Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion playfully for Yan-
Gallery (Bard College), Contemporary Chinese Art and the Literary Culture of China (Bronx, N.Y.:
Lehman College Art Gallery, 1998), 10.
22
For more discussion on the comparison between Chinese artists self-fashioning and that of the artists
in other cultures, see Jonathan Hay, The Functions of Chinese Painting Toward a Unified Field Theory.
In Anthropologies of Art, 116, edited by Mari t Westermann Williamstown, Mass. Sterling and Francine
Clark Art Institute; New Haven: Distributed by Yale University Press, 2005.
14
tse. Written by Mei sha-mi [Novice of the Plum Blossom].23 K
An artists own inscription, which serves as a kind of personal dedication, will
occasionally, though not always, surpass the work of art itself (whether it be a
handscroll, hanging scroll, album leaf or fan painting) in respect of offering clues to
the appreciation and interpretation of the work and attaching to the original visual
significance another stratum of contextual connotation24, as is the case with Poetic
Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion:
The inscription offers the subject who built the pavilion (I), the incentive for
building the thatched pavilion (to bid farewell to the world of ordinary and the familiar),
the location and surrounding environment of the pavilion (by the side of the hamlet, in
the deep woods), the activities being conducted in the pavilion (playing the lute and
reading books), and whom the painting is for (Yan-tse/Yuan Ze).
Regarding the person who is responsible for building the pavilion, it is possible that
it was Wu Zhen who built it, and it is also possible that the pavilion may be built by
someone else, and the artist may have composed the painting in memory of the event (as
Ni Zan did with his hanging scroll Rongxi Studio). Though it is unknown who the person
named Yuanze to whom the painting is dedicated is, it is likely that he may have been
the one who built the pavilion (given that Wu Zhen is quite poor himself) and that Wu
Zhen has made this intimate handscroll to celebrate his friends newly-built pavilion. As
the artist noted in the inscription, I did this Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion
playfully for Yan-tse, this might be a reminder that the inscription should not be ta en
23
Wai Kam Ho, http://www.clevelandart.org/collections/collection%20online.aspx?pid={91ADCD8F992A-45A5-8599-70835467DF5E}&coid=5701641&clabel=highlights. Accessed November 27, 2012.

24
For a further discussion see Wu Hung, The Double Screen: Medium and Representation in Chinese
Painting (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 45.
15
literally and that the viewer should make allowance for the artists lighthearted humor
and equivocal expression regarding the builder of the pavilion.
The 40-character octave and the 22-character background information (author,
receiver, date, title) produce two rectangular formations (one by the octave, the other by
the background information) that join as an integrated whole.
Regarding the relative position of seals and inscription in Poetic Feeling in a
Thatched Pavilion, similar to several other ascribed Wu Zhen paintings (Fishermans
Idyll, Bamboo and Rock, Twin Junipers, and Mountain among Mountains) in which the
inscription and the seals form a neat whole block (figure 3, figure 4, figure 5, figure 6),
the seals on Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion (the two seals adjacent to and on the
left of the last three characters in the inscription) also form an integrated block formation.
Such formation of the inscription (and seals) agrees with what is commonly seen in
Southern Song and Yuan paintings: the inscription consists of characters confined in a
block, forming a regular unity, with the bottom of each column almost on a same
horizontal line. For example in Zhao Mengfus (1254-1322) Autumn Colors on the Qiao
and Hua Mountains (Figure 7), eight columns of dedication in kaishu (standard script, or
regular script) including the signature Zhao Mengfu zhi (made by Zhao Mengfu) are
included within the last column in order to preserve the block formation, and stress is
placed on the invisible but palpable outer contours or the block25.
In another work, Mount. Lu (in todays Jiangxi Province, southeast China), painted
by a Southern Song (1127-1279) Zen painter Yujian Rofen, we see that the inscription,
though not as regular as that in Zhao Mengfus painting, is nonetheless placed in clear
25
For more discussion on the shape and formation of the inscriptions see Joan Stanley-Baker, Old Masters
Repainted (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1995), 160-164.
16
and neat columns, forming a block, with only one character outside the block. Another
example is a mid-14th century work by the Yuan master Huang Gongwang: Dwelling in
the Fu-ch n
o ntains, where the inscription of the artist lies in a matrix-like formation.
Inscriptions of artists of later generations are composed in a more self-expressive,

irregular non-conformity, for example the one in a 17th century artist Wang Huis Snowy
Studio in a Mountain Village after Wang Youcheng (Figure 8), where the characters form
irregular heights of columns, separated according to the pauses of the meaning groups
(column one to five from right: Youweng laoren [Wang Shimin] gave me a blank album
and asked for some paintings. At the time I was traveling in Yangzhou and wasn't able to
comply. This spring I received an express letter [from him] so I quickly did these small
scenes after various masters; column six to seven: Your disciple's embarrassing brush and
ink is not worthy of entering your collection; column eight to ten: Done by a rainy
window on the 5th day of the 2nd month of jiajin year [March 5, 1674]")26.
Regarding the signature right after the inscription, we noticed some changes in the
signatures of the works ascribed to Wu Zhen. In the 1328 hanging scroll Twin Junipers,
the signature was Wu Zhen ; in the 1342 hanging scroll Fishermans Idyll, the
signature became meihua daoren (literally: Taoist Plum Blossom); in the 1347
handscroll Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion, the signature was mei shami
(literally rmaera27 Plum Blossom). Wu Zhens lineage with Taoism and Buddhism
was recorded in his posthumous anthology meidaoren yimo compiled by his
26
It is contended by Joan Stanley-Baker that it was a practice throughout Yuan for inscription blocks to be
modest and deferential in appearance. See Joan Stanley-Baker, Old Masters Repainted (Hong Kong: Hong
Kong University Press, 1995), p. 161.
27
A rmaera is a novice Buddhist monk.
17
younger countryman and literati scholar Qian Fen (late 17th century):
Wu Zhen [style name: Zhonggui], with an upright and noble character, was a
master painter in landscapes, bamboos and rocks. His inscription of poems on the
paintings, together with his painting and calligraphy were praised by his
contemporaries as san je (literally: three perfections). He would refuse the rich
who offered to buy his works, yet gifted them to the poor literati. He called himself
meihua daoren (Taoist Plum Blossom) and inscribed on his tombstone pagoda of
meihua heshang (Buddhist Mon Plum Blossom). He died in the middle of the
Hongwu Emperors reign (1368-1398) of the Ming dynasty (Zhongguis passaway-year was actually under the Zhizheng Emperors reign from 1341-1370; the
detailed account Duanbei Annals lacked identification text.) The scholar Gao
Xunzhi28 commented that Wu Zhens paintings are li e experienced generals
pluc ing up the banner [of the enemys army , bearing a courageous and heroic
momentum that no man can resist. [I thin [Gaos observation was right to the
point. The word goes that the Wu-district people cherished Zhongguis posthumous
works. [Viewing his works several centuries later, we are impressed with] their
magnificence; one can naturally imagine how striking they once were in the time of
Zhonggui. Suffering from the Yuan invasion, Zhonggui withdrew from the society
and came off as a Taoist. Maybe being a Taoist was his original intention? The
word also goes that Zhongguis elder brother Yuanzhang once studied divination
practice with Tianji Liu, and that Zhonggui also told the good and bad fortune for
people in Wuchuan with the help of I-Ching (Yi-ology) and that his words were
28
Gao Xunzhi , a scholar living in the Chia-ho area at the end of the Yuan dynasty, was called upon
in 1370 in the early Ming dynasty as one of the contributors of the History of Yuan.
18
always cautionary. Was Zhonggui not the group of Junping Yan29 and his like?30 L
The changes in signatures may be explained by the fact that Buddhism,
Confucianism and Taoism merged more in the Yuan dynasty towards a syncretism due to
the Yuan rulers preference for Lamaism, or Tibetan Buddhism. As a nomadic tribe in
northern Asia, the Mongols, conquerors of the Southern Song dynasty and founders of
the Yuan dynasty, like many other nomadic people, held initially a Shamanism belief
filled with rituals and magic, bearing much resemblance to Tibetan Buddhism, which was
soon adopted by the new dynasty.31 Such a preference for Tibetan Buddhism made it
practical for the other three major religions: Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism to
unite rather than fight with each other. Further, since the Tang dynasty (618-907 A.D.),
Buddhism discarded more of its Indian origin and adapted itself more to the earthly and
materialistic character of Chinese philosophies such as Confucianism and Taoism, and
became more and more secularized.32 Actually the assimilating process started as early as
29
Yan Junping was a Taoist scholar and thinker in the Western Han (202 BCE-9CE) dynasty. He
lived in seclusion in Chengdu during the reign of Emperor Cheng (r. 33BC-7BC) of Han dynasty as a
fortune-teller. Known as guiding people in the light of their fateful trend, the people of Shu liked him.
Wu Zhen , and Qian Fen (late 17th century), Meidaoren yi mo in Cong shu ji
cheng xu bian , Ji bu , Bie ji lei , vol. 109 (Shanghai: Shanghai shu dian, 1994),
486.
30
31
For a detailed description see Tsun-yan Liu and Judith Berling, The Three Teachings in the MongolY an Period, in Y an Thought: Chinese Thought and Religion Under the Mongols (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1982), 481-482.
32
Though Indian Buddhism advocated an ascetic life for its believers consisting of no labor and begging
for basic necessities of living; nevertheless, during the Tang dynasty, through the efforts of Huineng, the
sixth Patriarch, and others, Buddhism gradually transformed itself into a religion that repudiates not so
much of profane life: it even encouraged Chinese industriousness (For a detailed description of the
transformation of Buddhism in Tang dynasty China see Yingshi Yu, Zhongguo wen hua shi tong shi, Hong
Kong: Oxford University Press, 2010, 61-67). Another transformation of Buddhism in the Tang dynasty is
the development of Zen Buddhism (which came into being in China in the 6th century A.D.) through
Huinengs teaching that zhi zhi benxin (point directly to the human mind) and jian xing cheng fo (see ones
nature and become a Buddha); which, according to the sociologist Robert Bellah, is one of the features of
modern religion, viz. the direct relation between the individual and the transcendent reality (Robert N.
Bellah, Religious Evolution, in William A. Lessa and Evon Z. Vogt, Reader in Comparative Religion,
19
the Western and Eastern Jin dynasty (265-420 A.D.) when many powers fought with each
other and the people who longed for a united and peaceful nation turned to Buddhism for
hope (Buddhism has been introduced into China at latest in the 1st century A.D.).
Wu Zhens choosing of signatures (or those copied or forged signatures) leads us to
the similar experience of the Yuan painter Ni Zan (who studied Buddhism for a long time
before he converted to the Quanzhen School of Taoism), and Bada Shanren (Zhu Da, ca.
1626-1705) and Shi Tao (Zhu Ruoji, 1642-1707) in the late Ming and early Qing dynasty,
who, originally Buddhists, converted to Taoism (we are not sure whether they totally
abandoned Buddhism) during the last decade of the 17th century33, which may also have
resulted from the invasion of the Manchus into China who later established the Qing
dynasty.
Despite the plausible reasoning that Buddhism and Taoism merged into each other
during the turbulent Yuan dynasty, and despite Qian Fens records of Wu Zhen inscribing
on his own tombstone pagoda of meihua heshang (Buddhist Mon Plum Blossom), we
have reason to doubt Wu Zhens Buddhist lineage reflected in his signature mei shami
(Buddhist monk Plum Blossom) in Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion because this
signature is rarely seen in other ascribed Wu Zhen paintings: in pre-1347 (the dated time
of Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion) paintings, such as Twin Junipers (1328),
Mountain among Mountains, Fisherman on Lake Dongting (1341), Fishermans Idyll
(1342), and Eight Views of Jiahe (1344), the signature is meihua daoren (Taoist Plum
Blossom), in the Bamboo and Rock scroll dated 1347, the signature is also mei hua
New York: Narper & Row, 1965, 82. Quoted in Yingshi Yu, Zhongguo wen hua shi tong shi, Hong Kong:
Oxford University Press, 2010, 66).
33
For more investigation of the Taoist conversion of Bada Shanren and Shi Tao, see Jonathan Hay, Shitao:
Painting and Modernity in Early Qing China (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 126-128.
20
daoren, and in post-1347 paintings, such as Album of Ink Bamboo Paintings (1348), the
signature is mei lao (the old man Plum Blossom), in the Manual of Ink Bamboo
Paintings (1350), the signature is meihua dao ren. And in paintings without a date,
such as Fisherman on an Autumn River, Spring Dawn on a Clear River, and Fisherman
after Jing Hao, the signature was also meihua daoren. From the representatives of
signatures of the ascribed Wu Zhen paintings, we can see that the most common one is
meihua daoren (Taoist Plum Blossom), and only in Poetic Feeling in a Thatched
Pavilion does the signature mei shami (Buddhist Plum Blossom) appear. This
inconsistency with other attributed paintings signatures is not sufficient for doubting
Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilions authenticity, but it nevertheless renders it more
questionable. If in future there might merge further evidence that might assist in
determining in which period of Wu Zhens life and career this work should fit in terms of
its signature.
Calligraphy
The inscription of the handscroll Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion is written in
the cursive script, consists of 62 characters and has no obvious retouching/reworking
traces. The calligraphic technique called side tip (ce feng) is mostly applied in composing
the inscription, which results in edges and corners in the shape of the characters.
Compared with the visual part of the handscroll in which the mid tip (zhong feng) is
mostly applied, the inscription shows more pointedness than the mellow and round
brushwork seen in the painting (see for example the trees on the left part of the scroll and
the brushstrokes depicting the pavilion). The ink tone of the inscription is also darker
than most parts of the painting. However, the speed with which the artist composed the
21
inscription is higher than that with which he made the painting, since the brushwork of
the calligraphy is smoother, more seamless and more varied in width than that of the
painting which is even in width and which seems to drift more slowly, presenting the
viewer with a sense of clumsiness and awkwardness (which is one of the aesthetic
pursuits of the Chinese literati artists in order to differentiate themselves from the
professional painters). In some characters of the inscription, the flying-white (fei bai)
technique, which features broken connections between strokes and which is unique to
half-dry brushwork, is observable: in the character gou (figure 9), duan (figure 10), qing
(figure 11), gong (figure 12), qing (figure 13), he (figure 14), and sha (figure 15). Though
the characters vary a lot from one another in composition, width of brushstroke and ink
tone, they present the viewer a neat and tidy impression in general since each character
occupies an equal share of space, and the spaces between the six columns are also equal
in width.
Compared with other attributed Wu Zhen inscriptions written in the cursive style,
the one in Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion is more in the tradition of the Wang
Xizhi - Mi Fu style of the modern cursive (jin cao) which consists of less direct
connections between brushstrokes and characters (in Poetic Feeling in a Thatched
Pavilion, only the characters qin and shu have a direct connection in brushstrokes),
whereas many other Wu Zhen calligraphy works in the cursive style follow the Zhang Xu
- Huai Su Huang Tingjian tradition of the wild cursive (kuang cao) style which allows
for more direct connections between brushstrokes and characters and gives more artistic
freedom to the calligrapher (see for example Wu Zhens inscription in Fishermans Idyll,
Figure 5, Manual of Bamboo in Monochrome Ink, Figure 16, 17 and 18). The majority of
22
Wu Zhens calligraphy in the wild cursive style confirms the late Yuan connoisseur Tao
Zongyis comment on Wu Zhens cursive calligraphy that he learned after Gong Guang
who is a follower of the calligrapher Zhang Xu, the Divine Grassist.34
The calligraphy in Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion shows a consistency in the
wielding of the brush and personal style of Wu Zhen, and it also presents some changes
with the time of Wu Zhens artistic career. The uniformity of brush traits can be observed
in comparison with some calligraphy pieces in several other attributed Wu Zhen paintings,
such as the Manual of Bamboo in Monochrome Ink, Bamboo and Rock, Central
Mountains, Fishermans Idyll, and Twin Junipers. The character fang and the character
zhu in both the 20th leaf of Manual of Bamboo in Monochrome Ink (figure 19) and
Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion (figure 20) present similar composition, identical
brush-wielding habit of connections between brushstrokes and the weight-imposing habit
(see the parts in the two characters where the brushstroke become most expansive). The
character mei, wei and fang in Bamboo and Rock (figure 21) and Poetic Feeling in
a Thatched Pavilion (figure 22) also share the similar connection between brushstrokes,
similar omission of certain brushstrokes (the two dots in the character mei and the one dot
in the character wei). Similarly, the characters nian, yue, shu and the phrase xi zuo in
Central Mountains (figure 23) and Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion (figure 24) also
possess consistent composition, simplification and amplification habit (see the position of
the dot in nian in relation to the character, the left part of zuo which is simplified in one
stroke, and the prolonged leftfalling first stroke in yue).
34
Tao Zongyi (fl. 1360-1368), Shu shi hui yao [9 juan, bu yi], Wen yuan ge Si ku quan
shu dian zi ban (Xianggang: Di zhi wen hua chu ban you xian gong si; Taibei Shi: Han zhen tu shu suo
ying gong si zong jing xiao, 2006, electronic book, bu yi), 33.
23
The comparison between the inscriptional calligraphy in Poetic Feeling in a
Thatched Pavilion (1347) with that in Fishermans Idyll (1342) and Twin Junipers (1328)
shows that the calligraphic style in Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion (figure 25) and
Twin Junipers (figure 26) (as well as Central Mountains, Bamboo and Rock, and
Fisherman Recluse on Lake Dongting, 1341, figure 27) are more neat and closer to the
tradition of modern cursive style (jin cao) and the inscription in Fishermans Idyll (figure
28) (as well as the Manual of Bamboo in Monochrome Ink) follows more the lineage of
the wild cursive style (kuang cao). The change in the choice of calligraphy might be
explained by the stylistic change in literati landscape paintings (which emerged in the
early Yuan dynasty and matured in late Yuan and Ming dynasty) from the descriptive
style of the Song to the more expressive style of the Yuan dynasty which is sparse of
detail and economic of means35, which resulted from the unfulfilled ambition to serve
the government using ones erudition and thus the self-exile imposed by the literati
painters who used calligraphic ink plays as an outlet for their depression.
Sealing
Regarding the seals on Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion, the two seals (figure
29) closest to the inscription associated with Wu Zhen are identical with those two seals
that appeared on most of the Wu Zhen attributions. The upper seal reads plum blossom
hut (meihua an ), and the lower one reads Jiaxing Wu Zhen Zhonggui Painting
and Calligraphy Seal (Jiaxing Wu Zhen Zhonggui shu hua yin ).
These two seals appeared frequently in attributed Wu Zhen paintings, as can be seen in
35
Wen C. Fong, Beyond Representation: Chinese Painting and Calligraphy, 8th-14th Century (New York:
Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 432.
24
for example Fishermans Idyll (1342), Central Mountain (or Mountain among
Mountains, dated 1336, figure 30) and Bamboo and Rock (1347, figure 31).
Among the total of 33 seals on this handscroll, the earliest is from 15th century (by
Shen Zhou, 1427-1509), 10 seals are from the 17th century (1 by Li Zhaoheng, act. 1st
half of 17th century and 9 by Liang Qingbiao, 1620-1691), 1 is from the 19th century (by
Wang I-jung, 1848-1900), 15 are from the 20th century (1 by Li Yanshan, 1898-1961, 1
by Huang Wen, and 13 by Chen Rentao). And the frontispiece was composed by the
Ming dynasty poet and government official Li Dongyang (1447-1516).
As we can see, most of the identified seals (as well as the frontispiece) come from
an age much later than Wu Zhens death in 1354, and the majority of people who
stamped their seals lived in the period in and after the 17th century (when Dong
Qichangs Northern and Southern school theory has become an established orthodox and
Wu Zhen has been recognized according to this theory as one of the four great masters of
the Yuan dynasty). This may be explained by two circumstances: (1) Wu Zhens
remoteness during his lifetime, as Sun Zuo (ca. 1340-1424) commented in his Cang luo
ji According to my observation, Zhonggui is a hermit. His interest is usually in the
mountains and forests, therefore his brushstrokes bear the peaceful and distant character,
and lac the spirit of the aristocrats and their followers.36 Therefore he may not have had
many acquaintances in his lifetime to share his paintings. (2) The unpopularity of Wu
Zhens paintings during his lifetime, as Dong Qichang commented on one of the
fisherman paintings ascribed to Wu Zhen [Wu Zhen was originally living next door to
Sun Zuo (14th century), Cang luo ji . Wen yuan ge Si ku quan shu dian zi ban (Xianggang:
Di zhi wen hua chu ban you xian gong si; Taibei Shi: Han zhen tu shu suo ying gong si zong jing xiao,
2006, electronic book, volume 3), 6.
36
25
Sheng [Mao] Zizhao. The number of people coming from everywhere to purchase [Sheng
Mao Zizhaos paintings with gold and sil is great, whereas [Wu Zhen Zhongguis door
is rarely noc ed on. [Wu Zhens wife therefore laughed at him. [Wu Zhen Zhonggui
said: 'It will not be like this in twenty years.' It turned out to be what Wu Zhen has
predicted.37
The two reasons just cited contributed to the result that when Sun Zuo, a lover of
Wu Zhens paintings, searched in Wu Zhens hometown for three years for his paintings
not long after Wu death, he was frustrated in finding none When I (Sun Zuo) stayed in
Xiuzhou (Jiaxing, Wu Zhens hometown) for three years, and visited all the scholarofficials to find Wu Zhens paintings, I did not find one. So in the next hundred years,
how few people will know and like his paintings? In the summer of the jiachen year of
the Zhizheng reign (1364), my friend Zhang Xiangnan brought me an ink bamboo
painting from his relative Xuan Los collection and said You have always loved
Zhongguis paintings, please inscribe on it.38 From Sun Zuos recording in his cang luo
ji, Wu Zhen was neither sociable nor well-admired during his life time. Therefore it is
possible that Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion was created by Wu Zhen, but was
little known until Shen Zhou (1427-1509) rediscovered it and composed the colophon
next to the inscription I love the Old Man of the Plum-blossom, who inherited the
secrets of Ch-jan from heart to heart. In cultivating this "water and ink kinship" he was
able to endow everything with a touch of aged mellowness. Trees and rocks seem to fall
37
Yu Fengqing (17th century), Yu Fengqing Shu hua ti ba ji [Records of Inscriptions on Paintings

and Calligraphies] (Shanghai: Shen zhou guo guang Press, 1911, volume 8), 8.
2006, electronic book, volume 3), 6-7.
38
26
from his brush [so effortlessly] that even nature itself could hardly deny their emergence.
So now, under the grove of the oak trees, I am willing to serve him with all humility.
Shen Chou, a later follower.39
Visual analysis
When entering the handscroll from the lower right corner where a series of mounds
with moss on them in the foreground and a grove of trees in the background leave
between them a path in the middle ground for the viewer to travel through, the viewer is
directed to enter a level pictorial plane where the slightly tilted mounds in the foreground
and the sparse vegetation in the background are not far away from each other, which
suggests the shallow depth and intimate character of the handscroll. The viewer then
encounters a comparatively prominent element, a huge Taihu stone in the middle ground
next to the mounds. The porous scholars roc may not be as tall as it seems, but its
position in the middle ground renders it larger than the groves of trees in the background
to its right. Here the natural elements (mounds, trees) meet the human elements (the
scholars roc ). The prominence of the scholars roc may be a hint for the viewer who
will soon discover the true theme of the painting to be the scholars retreat instead of a
larger landscape. Before encountering the thatched pavilion which is the center of the
pictorial plane, the viewers encounter with the scholars roc (which takes the place of
the central mountain that usually occupies the dominant position in a landscape painting
following the high distance scheme) may make him more aware of the intimate nature
of the painting, and thus not expecting any towering elements which are frequently
thought of as essential to a Chinese landscape painting. The rugged contour of the
39
Translated by Wai-kam Ho. http://www.clevelandart.org/art/1963.259.
27
scholars roc resembles the shape of the barren mountains that bear more stones than
vegetation and are typical for the landscape in north China, as depicted in Guo Xis Early
Spring.
The scholars roc immensity and its combination with the thatched pavilion remind
one of Wang Mengs Bamboo Cottage by Lake Tai/Retreat at Ju-qu (Figure 32) in which
the huge and odd-loo ing scholars roc s serve to accentuate the unique scenery by La e
Tai and hint at the hermit scholars life in nature. Similar the foreground rocks in Wang
Mengs Bamboo Cottage by Lake Tai, where the rocks serve as a visual device that acts
as an extension of the mountains around the lake and help shape the waterway (and thus
offers an accessible path for the viewer), the scholars roc in Poetic Feeling in a
Thatched Pavilion also serves as an extension of the mounds and helps lead the viewer to
travel past it and arrive at the thatched pavilion. Here the scholars roc functions as
obstructive scenery (zhang jing) which frequents the plan of the private gardens in
southeast China and which temporarily blocks the view of the visitor so that the sceneries
will be not revealed all at once and adds steps and flavor to the viewing experience.
Though the two scholars are only conversing in the bower, we can imagine them drinking
tea or tasting wine and viewing the distant landscape through the porous surfaces of the
scholars rock in front of the pavilion while the vapor of the hot tea or wine which looks
like mist circling mountainsides blurs the contours of the rock.
When the viewer has passed the scholars roc and travels on, he arrives at the
thatched pavilion in the middle ground in which two scholars are conversing on two stone
stools and two servants are waiting for them outside the pavilion. Here the foreground
elements are reduced to minimum and more trees and vegetation appear in the
28
background which, though taller than the rightmost grove, do not appear protruding for
their crowns reach only up to three-quarters of the vertical space. There is also some
space between the groves of trees which leaves more room for the pavilion. The grove
scene combined with the inscription the woods being deep, birds are happy leads the
viewer to imagine sparrows twittering in the copses and cranes rambling outside the
pavilion and resting beside the rocks.
The brushwork depicting the pavilion and the figures is concise and allusive instead
of representational: several long, dark, continuous strokes sketch the roof and four pillars
of the pavilion; shorter, lighter, denser brushstrokes describe the thatched nature of the
roof and depict the floor and the platform supporting the pavilion made of chunks of
stones; brief, dark brushstrokes are applied to depict the four human figures, their gowns
and headgear and staff, but the brushwork is so concise that no facial features or
expressions are readable.
The two scholar figures are tiny in size and are enclosed in the pavilion in the stagelike open and spacious middle ground among the trees, mounds and rocks. The figures
are small and surrounded by trees and mounds and thus are reminiscent of Zhao
Mengfus The Mind Landscape of Xie Youyu (Figure 33), where the Western Jin scholar
Xie Youyus (280-322) simple and tiny figure is encircled yet not concealed by the
groves and natural scenery around him. Although the trees and the scholars roc in
Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion are all larger in size than the thatched pavilion, all
the natural elements serve as a backdrop of the pavilion and the human figures inside it,
for all the trees and the rock seem to be making way for the pavilion, receding and
offering a clear space in their midst. The viewers attention is naturally drawn to the
29
pavilion in the middle of the stage-like setting and the two figures sitting in leisure inside
the pavilion, which offers the viewer a poetic impression of laid-back scholar-officials
conversing about a life withdrawn from worldly concerns.
The huge scholars roc adorning the pavilion is evocative of some garden paintings
in the Yuan dynasty in which the scholars roc also ta es up a prominent space and acts
as a significant indicator of the scholars fascination with the natural world and a
crystallization of human efforts in bringing the natural environment close at hand for the
literatis appreciation. For example, in Wu Zhens slightly younger contemporary Ni
Zans handscroll Panoramic View of the Lion Grove Garden (figure 34), Wen
Zhengmings East Garden (figure 35), Xu Bens (died 1393) Lion Grove Garden (figure
36), Wen Zhengmings Garden of the Inept Administrator (figure 37), and Qian Gus
Small and Tranquil Garden (xiao zhi yuan, figure 38), these various artists deployed
prominently piled up rocks to indicate the cultural environment (in addition to the natural
environment full of bamboos and trees) in which the scholar is dwelling. The prominence
of the scholars roc (s) (in comparison with the pavilions and human figures) in all these
works may suggest the compositional function of the scholars roc in an intimate garden
scene without towering mountains: in a courtyard garden, the pile of rocks may be an
allusion to the absent mountains in a usual landscape composition.
The concise brushstroke used to depict the figures is similar to that in the Fisherman
(Lutan diaoting) handscroll (figure 39) in which the fisherman figure is portrayed in a
direct and succinct manner with very few brushstrokes outlining his contour. Not only the
figures, but also the natural scene surrounding them are also composed in a highly
indicative and symbolic manner: long, pale, horizontal strokes appear repeatedly in
30
groups throughout the handscroll, indicating recession in space, suggesting different
roughness in different parts of the ground and establishing a foreground and a middle
ground. Such idiom of setting the stage and suggesting depth is a common one in Yuan
literati painting: in works such as Autumn Colors on the Qiao and Hua Mountains (figure
40), River Village: Fishermans Joy (figure 41), the assemblages of long, horizontal,
light-toned brushstrokes serve as an indication of the distance the objects (pines, water)
are from the viewer (foreground, middle ground, background).
The depiction of the thatched pavilion (figure 42) is of a similar nature to that in
other example of the Wu Zhen pictorial idiom: in Fishermans Idyll (1342, figure 43),
Fishermen after Jing Hao (Freer Gallery of Art, figure 44, dated 1342), and Fishermen
(Liu Zongyuan Zhuan Yufutujuan, Shanghai Museum of Art, figure 45), the artist also
deployed irregular, short and pale brushstrokes in groups to signify the thatches of roofs
and used longer and darker single strokes to outline the roofs contours. The brushworks
look more like calligraphic strokes than pictorial elements. The expressive rather than
descriptive brushwork may be read as part of the calligraphic painting tradition which,
when combined with the inscription, is especially suitable for the Yuan literati who no
longer enjoy the sympathy of the court patrons (as did the Song literati) and thus have
abandoned the descriptive, realistic Song model and look for a new outlet for their
suppressed political and artistic ambition.
The small size and the wall-less feature of the pavilion reminds one of the pavilion
in Ni Zans Rongxi Studio (figure 46) which is similarly diminutive in size, symbolic in
style and is even simpler in character, without the supporting platform underneath, or the
stone stools or any figures inside.
31
The pavilion has long served as an essential component in Chinese literati art. The
famous Lantingji Xu (literally "Preface to the Poems Collected from the Orchid Pavilion")
composed by the calligrapher Wang Xizhi in the Eastern Jin dynasty in 353 CE has set
the tone for the pavilion to act as a habitation of the scholars and literati, a gathering
domicile for the spirit of poetry.
During the Song dynasty, the notion of private and even personal gardens serving as
a place of self-cultivation and retreat from the dusty world prevailed among scholarofficials who had a political rank and who also enjoyed their intimate relationship with
nature through their villa or hut in the valleys or by the lakes.
The pavilion continued to be understood as a signifier of the scholar-officials and
literati as well as their lofty spirit and distance from the worldly affairs in the Yuan
dynasty, as we can see from for example in Rongxi Studio (literally translated as a room
that barely accommodates the nees, 1372, Figure 47), a hanging scroll of Ni Zan, a
younger contemporary of Wu Zhen and also one of the Four Great Masters of the Yuan,
where a pavilion that is similar to the one in Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion stands
out as the main subject matter in the composition.
In the Yuan dynasty, because many Chinese scholars were restrained from serving
in the Mongol-dominated government, the withdrawal from the political pursuit and the
embracing of nature and the cultivation of ones spirit became more prevalent for the
politically disadvantaged Chinese literati. Instead of depicting a real villa or pavilion, a
symbolic shorthand a thatched hut is usually employed40 to express the unfulfilled
40
David A. Sensabaugh, Life at Jade Mountain Notes on the Life of the Man of Letters in FourteenthCentury Wu Society, in Ch go
aigashi ronsh :
i ei ensei anre i-kinen (Essays on the History
of Chinese Painting: Festschrift for Professor Suzuki Kei, Tokyo: Yoshikawa k bunkan, 1981), 44-69.
Quoted in Maxwell K. Hearn, Cultivated Landscapes: Chinese Paintings from the Collection of Marie-
32
political ambitions released in the literatis recreation poetry, painting and calligraphy.
In the Ming dynasty, Wen Zhengming, the most celebrated literati painter of the 16th
century, composed an inscription on his hanging scroll painting Living Aloft: Master
Li s Retreat which opened with a summary that Immortals have always delighted in
pavilion-living, and which described the at-ease and composed state of the master of the
pavilion (the retired scholar-official and literati artist) in the following sentences:
Windows open on eight sides eyebrows smiling. Up above, towers and halls well up;
down below, clouds and thunder are vaguely sensed. Reclining on a dais, a glimpse of
Japan; leaning on a balustrade, the sight of Manchuria. While worldly affairs shift and
change, in their midst a lofty man is at ease.41
The importance of a pavilion or a thatched hut in the composition of a traditional
southern (or literati/scholar-gentry) landscape can be illustrated by a remark of Arnold
Chang, a contemporary Chinese American artist working in the style of traditional
Chinese literati paintings, that he himself is one of the few who dared to do so [painting
a Chinese landscape] without including a tingzi pavilion, or a thatched hut42.
The two standing boys holding staffs outside the pavilion remind us of the visual
idiom that is frequently seen in Yan and early Ming paintings: aimless pointing by the
figures is an approach used to enliven the pictorial scene43.(See for example Chu Te-juns
Hlne and Guy Weill (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002),
5.
41
Maxwell K. Hearn, Cultivated Landscapes: Chinese Paintings from the Collection of Marie-Hlne and
Guy Weill (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 22.
Hearns translation.
42
Jerome Silbergeld, and Dora C. Y. Ching, ARTiculations: Undefining Chinese Contemporary Art
(Princeton, N.J.: P.Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art, Dept. of Art and Archaeology,
Princeton University: Distributed by Princeton University Press, 2010), 33.
43
James Cahill, Hills beyond a River: Chinese Painting of the Yan Dynasty, 1279-1368 (New York:
33
Playing the Chin beneath Pines, Figure 48); the gestures of the two boys may also serve
as a predecessor of the gesticulations of an ideal tourist who points with hands or a fan
towards the historical monuments or cultural relics in the visual vocabulary of late Ming
and early Qing dynasty44. For example, the staff-holding boy appeared later in River
Landscape (dated 1578, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Figure 49) attributed to the Ming
collector and connoisseur Xiang Yuanbian (1525-1590).
The composition of the four figures (two inside the pavilion, two outside watching
the former two) reminds us of the tales of the immortals who reside in mountains or
groves, which bear Taoist influences (The Taoist belief assumes that the immortals live in
high mountains, as were depicted in Tang Yins The Thatched Hut of Dreaming of an
Immortal, early 16th century, figure 50). For example, the Liang dynasty (502-557 CE)
literati Ren Fang recorded an anecdote in his Shuyiji (The Tales of the Marvelous): the
story goes that a woodcutter Wang Zhi went into Mount. Shishi to fell trees when he
encountered a group of boys playing the weiqi go and singing; they offered him
something datepit-like for him to eat, and he therefore felt no hunger. After a while, they
asked him to go home, and Zhi noticed that his axe-helve was rotten; then he went home
and found no person of his time living.45 I
There seem to be two kinds of period styles in the attributed Wu Zhen oeuvre: the
period style of for example Twin Junipers (Figure 51), Mountain among Mountains
(Figure 52), and Fishermans Idyll (Figure 53) is similar to the ideals of landscape
Weatherhill, 1976), 80.
44
A full discussion of the functions and of the figures and the idioms of their gestures in late Ming and
early Qing Chinese paintings, see Craig Clunas, Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press), 1997, 85.
45
Ma Junliang ji, Long wei mi shu, Taibei: Yi wen yin shu guan, 1968, vol. 1. Shuyiji, 13.
34
inherited from the Northern Song old masters (such as Fan Kuan and Li Cheng); some
other attributed Wu Zhen paintings such as Fisherman (Lutan Diaoting, Figure 54),
Spring Dawn on a Clear River (undated, Figure 55), Painting of Latter Ode on the Red
Cliff (Figure 56), Fishermen (Liu Zongyuan zhuan Yufutujuan, figure 57), and Fishermen
after Jing Hao (figure 58, figure 59, figure 60) appear to depict the landscape as a servile
appendage to the human figures and activities (which is more representative of what
would be a Ming-dynasty aesthetic). Though the first category is closer to the usual
understanding of the indirect and implicit landscape aesthetics of the Yuan dynasty
(which is similar to the Song landscape ideal), the second category may be understood as
an innovation in the Yuan dynasty (compared with the Song landscape model) which is
more expressive and less descriptive. For those paintings in the second category, the
brushstrokes are briefer, the background is shallower and simpler, and the composition
process quicker, and there is more random wielding of the brush. Most importantly, the
inscription has become an integral part of the painting, enriching and enliven the nonrepresentational pictorial space (see for example the two Fishermen handscrolls, figure
57-60).
When the viewer has virtually travelled past the pavilion and moves leftward, he/she
will be greeted by the expansion of the foreground and background elements (groves of
trees, bamboos, rocks, mounds, cottages) as the pavilion in the middle ground fades away
in the left part of the handscroll and leaves a path for the viewer to travel through into the
deep woods.
The gracefully swaying bamboos depicted with thin brushstrokes accompanied by
some flying-white strokes paired with a massive rock topped by moss depicted with wet,
35
wide, light-toned brushstro es is analogous to Wu Zhens hanging scroll Bamboo and
Rock (figure 61) in which the bamboo leaves are depicted with the flying-white technique
and the moss on the rock is portrayed with dark, layered ink dots, as are those in Poetic
Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion.
The swaying bamboo on the left foreground of the handscroll traces back to the
legend of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors period. When Emperor Shun Di (2322 century BC) died during his perambulation in the south of China, his two Empresses
Ehuang and Nying shed so many tears on the bamboos nearby that they took on a
pattern that looks like tear-drops and were named mottled bamboos.46 J
To the left of the bamboo grove grows a cluster of trees that look like cedar or
cypress, both of which were beloved tree choice in the ascribed Wu Zhen oeuvre (see for
example Mountain among Mountains, Twin Junipers). The cedar and cypress trees have
long been regarded as the representation of upright character and respectable personality
by the Chinese literati due to their ability to stand the wintry weather and unfavorable
environment. In addition, the cedar tree was also a symbol of longevity in Chinese
folklore47 because of its evergreen leaves and endurance. The cedar and cypress trees
were a favorite topic in literati paintings because they stand for a righteous personality
and the secret of natures harmony and sustainability, both of which were embraced as
ideals of the Chinese literati.
Despite the frequent appearance of the cedar/cypress theme in the ascribed Wu Zhen
paintings, they reveal some stylistic differences in nature under close examination. If we
46
Ren Fang (460-508), Shu yi ji . In Ma Junliang ji, Long wei mi shu (vol. 1. Taibei: Yi wen
yin shu guan, 1968), 5.
47
Martin J. Powers, A Dated Handscroll by the 15 th Century Literati Painter Yao Shou, Bulletin of the
Art Institute of Chicago (1973-1982) 70, no. 2 (1976): 16.
36
compare the cedar/cypress trees in Twin Junipers (Figure 62), Mountain among Mountain
(Figure 63), Autumn Mountains (Figure 64), and Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion
(Figure 65), all of which have been attributed to Wu Zhen, we can see that the first two
samples form a group of similar style in which the cedar/cypress trees are upright, similar
in width (of the tree trunk), and form a rhythmic whole (considering the space between
each two of them), while the latter two paintings form another stylistic group in which the
cedar/cypress trees are oblique, irregular in height, width and the inter-space between the
two trees. Such difference may be explained by the inscription of Poetic Feeling in a
Thatched Pavilion in which the artist claims that this handscroll is an in play (I did this
Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion playfully for Yan-tse) and therefore may be
conducted in an impromptu and swift manner.
Slight slopes on which some cottages are built and trees grow appear in the viewers
sight on the leftmost part of the handscroll in the foreground. The long, smooth, lighttoned ink brushstrokes grouped together to depict the tilting surface of the slope are also
seen in some other attributed Wu Zhen paintings like Spring Dawn on a Clear River
(figure 66) and Hermit Fisherman on an Autumn River (figure 67). The clump of cottages
to the side of the slope resembles those in the Fishermen (Liu Zongyuan Zhuan
Yufutujuan) (figure 57) and the Fishermen after Jing Hao (figure 58-60) handscrolls
attributed to Wu Zhen. The cottages correspond to the description of the village in the
inscription By the side of the hamlet (I) built a thatched pavilion. Though no trace of
human activities is observable inside those cottages, the fences surrounding them are
enough to suggest that they are inhabited residences (li e those cottages in Wu Zhens
Fisherman after Jinghao). The cottages are shaded by the trees surrounding them, veiled
37
by the earth mounds to their right, and shielded by the rocks to their back. The ambiguous
allusion to the maker of the thatched pavilion in the inscription leads us to the speculation
that the owner and dweller of these cottages may be Yuanze, Wu Zhens friend to whom
the handscroll is dedicated.
Although no sign of water appears in the handscroll, it can be deduced from the
inscription streams and rocks invite lingering enjoyment that certain forms of water
may exist out of view in the neighborhood of the poetic bower: a stream flowing at the
foot of the fantastic scholars roc , a pond overlooked by the earth mounds and cottages,
or a small waterfall flying from the edge of the rocks on the left ridge of the handscroll,
any of which would complement the level-distance pictorial space, offer water supply for
the scholars who reside in the cottages and pavilion and allow them to bid farewell to
the world of ordinary and the familiar. The level-distance perspective deployed in Poetic
Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion which may be inspired by earlier, more ambitious Yuan
literati handscrolls with similar perspective choice such as Zhao Mengfus Autumn
Colors on the Qiao and Hua Mountains and Water Village determines the limited depth
of field the pictorial space can possibly contain and explains why water was not made
visible in the composition.
The whole composition of the handscroll resembles that of a private garden in
southeast China, one such as the Garden of the Inept Administrator and Lion Grove
Garden, for the groves of trees on the left and behind the pavilion as well as the earth
mounds and bamboos in front of the pavilion act as three sides of long corridors
encompassing the pavilion in the middle, allowing access to the scholars retreat on the
right side, while the fantastic scholars roc on its right serves as a suitable blocking view
38
for the visitors entering from the right side of the handscroll.
39
CHAPTER II POETIC FEELING IN A THATCHED PAVILION IN THE

TRADITION OF GARDEN PAINTING
In the last chapter, I explored the basic aspects (pictorial space, inscription,
calligraphy, seals) of Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion. In the following chapter, I
will compare some Yuan and Ming literati paintings with Poetic Feeling in a Thatched
Pavilion and explain what is special about Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion.
As mentioned earlier, Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion does not belong to the
standard Wu Zhen landscape category (Twin Junipers, Mountain among Mountains,
Fisherman on Lake Dongting, Spring Dawn on a Clear River and so forth) which is
largely derived from the Northern Song monumental landscape tradition. The reason for
this may be that Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion is more in the tradition of the
paintings of the private gardens in which men of the scholar class meet friends, hold tea
parties, appreciate their collections of paintings and calligraphies, and enjoy the natural
landscape and garden scenery. The garden painting tradition can be roughly divided into
three categories: the first category focuses on the human activities (scholars conversing,
tasting tea, composing poems, appreciating paintings and so forth) in the gardens; the
second category is the jie hua (ruled-line) tradition which focuses on the meticulous
depiction of the architecture (pavilions, bridges and so forth); the third category is the
map-like, usually panoramic garden scene which focuses on the relationship between the
garden and the landscape around it.
An early precedent of the first category is seen in Li Gonglins Gathering at the
West Garden (figure 68) which depicts an assembly of seventeen contemporary Northern
Song scholars and literati (including Su Shi, Mi Fu, Huang Tingjian, Cai Xiang and so
40
forth) at the house of the painter and official Wang Shen. The painting is done in the
level/horizontal distance perspective and outline drawing (bai miao) method which is
used here to underline the human figures who are conversing, composing painting and
calligraphy and inscribing texts on rocks. In the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasty, more
paintings depicting the private or public gardens appeared (with the rise of private
gardens in the rich and prosperous southeast China), such as Wang Fus The Study by
Lake Tai at the Foot of the Hill (hu shan shu wu, 1410, figure 69), Du Qiongs (13961474) Befriending the Pines (figure 70), Wen Zhengmings Tea Party at Mount. Hui
(1518, figure 71), East Garden (1530). Some of these paintings derive from literary
sources or historical records, such as Qiu Yings Garden for Self-Enjoyment (1515-1552,
figure 72) which depicts the Song scholar Sima Guangs Garden for Self-Enjoyment in
Luoyang (built in 1073). Qiu Yings Orchid Pavilion (figure 73) and Wen Zhengmings
Purification Ritual at the Orchid Pavilion (1542, figure 74) are both based on the famous
account of the gathering of 42 literati at the Orchid Pavilion near Shaoxing, Zhejiang, in
spring of the year 353. Some others are based on contemporary literati gatherings and life,
for example, Du Qiongs Befriending the Pines records his meeting with his brother-inlaw Wei Benzheng (literary name: Yousong, befriending the pines) in Dus garden
Dongyuan Zhai Wen Zhengmings Tea Party at Mount. Hui portrays Wen and his literati
friends tasting tea and enjoying the mountain scenery at Mount. Hui in Wuxi, Jiangsu;
Wen Zhengmings East Garden depicts the party at the East Garden of the Xu family in
Nanjing, Jiangsu.
Similar to Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion, these handscrolls or album leaves
all deploy the level distance (ping yuan) perspective and thus have a shallow depth of
41
field and a panorama of a complete garden scene in which the human figures and their
activities are depicted in detail. The human activities being the hub of the painting, the
human-related scenes (scholars roc s, bamboo groves, servants brewing tea,
domesticated cranes and deer, etc.) take up a larger proportion than the natural landscape.
Therefore it is understandable why the scholars roc appears in a prominent position in
Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion: to act as an obstructive scenery (blocking view,
figure 75), a pictorial device closing off the visitors view of the main scenery in order to
better lead the viewer/visitors attention to the subject of the painting the pavilion
(which is right behind the scholars roc when one enters from the right of the
handscroll).
The second category of the garden painting tradition is the landscapes in the ruledline (jie hua) manner which usually entails detailed, meticulous description of the
architecture (with the help of the ungraduated ruler, jie chi) in the landscape and usually
deploys the deep distance (shen yuan) perspective. Examples include Qu Dings (active
ca. 1023-1056) Summer Mountains (figure 76), Zhang Zeduans (1085-1145) Spring
Festival on the River (Qingming shang he tu, early 12th century, figure 77), Qian Xuans
Wang Xizhi Watching Geese (ca. 1295, figure 78), Xia Yuans The Yellow Pavilion (ca.
1350, figure 79), Leng Meis the Mountain Resort in Chengde (bi shu shan zhuang tu,
1713, figure 80), Wang Yuns Xiu Garden (1715-1720, figure 81), View of a Garden
Villa, after Yuan Jiang (18th century, figure 82), Tang Yifens Love Garden (Aiyuan tu,
1848, figure 83).
The third category of garden painting is the map-like, usually panoramic view of the
private garden. For example, Ni Zans Panoramic View of the Lion Grove Garden and
42
Xu Bens (died 1393) Lion Grove Garden both depict the Lion Grove Garden built in
1342 in Suzhou, Jiangsu, which was frequented by scholars in Suzhou in the Yuan and
Ming dynasty; Shen Zhous (1427-1509) East Village (figure 84) depicts the East Village,
the garden of his teacher Wu Kuan in Suzhou, Jiangsu; Wen Zhengmings Garden of the
Inept Administrator (1551, figure 85) depicts the Garden of the Inept Administrator built
by his friend Wang Xianchen in 1533; Qian Gus (1508-78) Small and Tranquil Garden
(Xiao zhi yuan) depicts the Small and Tranquil Garden of the Ming scholar Wang
Shizhen in Taicang, Jiangsu; Sun Kehongs Stone Table Garden (1572, figure 86 and 87)
depicts the Youfang Garden of the Ming scholar L Jiong in todays Jiaxing, Jiangsu
Zhang Fus (1546-ca. 1631) West Grove (figure 88) depicts the West Grove Garden of
the scholar An Shaofang in Wuxi, Jiangsu; and Zhang Hongs Painting of Zhi Garden
(1627, Figure 89, Figure 90, Figure 91) depicts the Zhi Garden of the Wus family in
Suzhou, Jiangsu. The difference between the second and third category is that jie hua
pays more attention to meticulous and detailed depiction of the architecture, and the maplike panorama painting is more concerned with depicting the garden and the landscape as
well as their symbiotic relationship.
Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion may be classified as belonging to the first
category (garden paintings with human activities as the hub). In terms of the effects of
space, Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion is less representational and more
linear/calligraphic, and presents more two-dimensionality instead of three-dimensionality.
The inscription is placed right on top of the hilltop on the left edge of the handscroll, as if
to remind the viewer that this is not an illusion of the reality, but some dramatic and vivid
brushstrokes on a flat paper. In terms of theme and style, Poetic Feeling in a Thatched
43
Pavilion is closer to Wang Fus The Study by Lake Tai at the Foot of the Hill (hu shan
shu wu, 1410, figure 90) which derives from no particular literary sources and depicts no
specific garden layout (the mountain and la e scene surrounding Wangs study, in
comparison with Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion, which depicts the artists
pavilion by a side of a hamlet). Wus handscroll is also as brief in brushstro es and less
graduated in in tones as Wangs handscroll. In terms of perspective, most garden
paintings depicting scholars get-togethers are shallow in the depth of field, and some of
them employed the perspective of significance (such as Li Gonglins Gathering at the
West Garden, figure 92 and 93, and Wen Zhengmings Tea Party at Mount. Hui, figure
92 in which the size of the figures are arranged according to their significance in the
handscroll), while some employed the perspective of disappearance (such as Poetic
Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion, figure 94, Wang Fus The Study by Lake Tai at the Foot
of the Hill, hu shan shu wu, 1410, figure 90, and Du Qiongs Befriending the Pines,
figure 91 in which the trees, mountains and islands in the lake in the distance decrease in
size, color saturation and contrast), and all of these paintings exhibit the Chinese
preference for no fixed-perspective and used the slightly tilted background to suggest a
recession in space.
In conclusion, Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion presents a literati gathering in a
thatched pavilion by the side of a hamlet with no particular time/place/figures identified.
The small size of the handscroll is suitable for the intimate motif of scholars/hermits
gatherings in the deep woods. The brushwork is calligraphic/linear and the level distance
perspective is utilized. Monochrome ink is deployed and the differentiation in ink tone
suggests different depths in space. Judging from the brushwork and the motif, the
44
painting belongs to the genre of literati painting, and the linear/calligraphic brushstrokes
are a characteristic of the 14th-century innovations in literati painting.
45
CHAPTER III CONCLUSION

The Northern Song landscapist Guo Xi put forward the notion of the san yuan (three
distances) in his painting theory book Lofty Messages of Forests and Streams, namely the
horizontal/level distance (ping yuan, looking from the nearby mountain towards the
faraway mountain), high distance (gao yuan, looking from the foothills to the mountain
peak) and deep distance (shen yuan, looking from the front of the mountain to the back of
the mountain), which emphasized the dominance of the landscape by rendering them
from a certain distance and which largely influenced Chinese landscape paintings in the
Northern Song dynasty. In the Southern Song dynasty, the entireness of the landscape
was sacrificed for the depiction of the human activities (typical of this trend is the corner
landscape of Ma Yuan and the half landscape of Xia Gui). In the early Yuan dynasty,
Zhao Mengfu advocated an artistic revivalism looking back to the Jin, Tang, and the
Northern Song dynasties, and many of Wu Zhens attributed landscapes are
representative of this landscape ideal.
Though the handscroll Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion no longer suggests the
ideal of Northern Song monumental landscape, and the landscape is no longer the subject
of the painting, but only a background for the human activities in the landscape, the
handscroll presents another genre of literati painting: the garden painting; and it reveals
some shifts in aesthetic conception from the 10th/11th century to the 14th century (and
onward): from the formidable, awe-inspiring landscape in the Northern Song dynasty
literati paintings to the more accessible and approachable landscape in the late Yuan and
Ming dynasty (compare Guo Xis Early Spring, Figure 95, and Wang Mengs Bamboo
Cottage by Lake Tai/Retreat at Ju-qu, Figure 96, both of which are of the deeper distance
46
composition); from the monumental landscape that engulfs the human figures (if there are
any) to the cultivated landscape that suits human necessity (compare Fan Kuans
Travelers amid Mountains and Streams and Wang Mengs The Simple Retreat, Figure 97,
both of which are of the high distance composition); from the more picturesque
representation of likeness to the more calligraphic wielding of the brush (compare Guo
Xis Old Trees, Level Distance, Figure 98, and Zhao Mengfus Twin Pines, Level
Distance, Figure 99, both of which are of the level distance composition); and from an
emphasis on verisimilitude and likeness of depiction to a preference for an expressionistic
rendering of the mind48 (compare Xia Guis Sailboat in Rainstorm, Figure 100, and Ni
Zans Woods and Valleys of Mount Y, Figure 101).
Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion presents the innovation in brushwork (from
graphic to linear) in literati painting in the Yuan dynasty, and suggests a new direction in
motif (garden painting) in Wu Zhens late oeuvre compared to his early monumental
landscapes complying with the Northern Song ideal. Compared with other literatis
garden scenes, Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion displays more Wu Zhen
characteristics: the usage of monochrome ink, the shu zu dian (rat foot dots, leaves like
the print of a rats foot. Groups of four of five slightly curved stro es arranges fanwise,
with a white center equivalent to the open top of the downward leaves. Used for pines in
the autumn or winter, or for distant pines.49) and pi-ma cun (hemp-fiber strokes)
techniques, as well as the cartoon-like succinct brushwork.
In the last two chapters, I have explored the work (painting with colophon mounted
48
For a more detailed account of the transition from the realistic depiction to an outpouring of personal
feelings see Richard Edwards, The World around the Chinese Artist: Aspects of Realism in Chinese
Painting (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1989), 57-61.
49
Benjamin March, Some Technical Terms of Chinese Painting (Baltimore: Waverly Press, 1935), 31.
47
as a handscroll) Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion from the perspective of the work
itself (pictorial space, inscription, calligraphy, sealing) and from external references to
the wor s historical, cultural and artistic contexts, and have addressed the questions of
the significance of the wor in Wu Zhens oeuvre and in the history of Chinese literati
painting as well as the wor s authenticity.
Based on this study of this work, some future research on its relationship to other
Wu Zhen paintings in terms of connoisseurship and authenticity would be
complementary to a better understanding of this work and the Wu Zhen style.
48
APPENDIX A A SHORT BIOGRAPHY OF WU ZHEN

Wu Zhen was recorded mostly as a Taoist recluse, although sometimes also as a
Buddhist follower. Fortunetelling was one of the ways of supporting oneself financially if
one were a Chinese scholar who was an expert in Taoism living when the political
hostility of the Yuan dynasty impeded the official career of the Chinese intelligentsia.
According to Mei dao ren yi mo [Wu Zhens Posthumously Collected Writings] collected
by his townsman Qian Fen (17th century), Wu Zhen came from the lu50 of Jiaxing, and
died in the middle of the Hongwu reign (1368-1398) of the Ming dynasty (according to
the Chronicle of Jiaxing). On the tombstone inscription that Wu Zhen devised for himself
(he was supposed to have precisely predicted his time of death), he alleged himself to be
born in the 17th year of the Zhiyuan reign (1280), and his death was in the 14th year of the
Zhizheng reign (1354). The Ming dynasty calligrapher and painter Chen Jiru (1558-1639)
has noted in his Mei hua an ji [Account of the Hut of Plum Blossom that on Wu
Zhens self-inscribed tombstone, was inscribed mei hua he shang zhi ta [the pagoda of
the monk Plum Blossom].51 The double-identity of being both a Taoist and Buddhist is a
common phenomenon for Chinese scholars in times of political turmoil due to alien
invasions (Yuan and Qing dynasties).
According to Qian Fens records (below), Wu Zhen was depicted as a respectable
Confucian hermit scholar who was not willing to serve the government because the ruler
50
Lu is an administrative division used during the Song, Jin, and Yuan dynasty in China. In Yuan
dynasty, the lu is under the leadership of the first-level administrative division xingsheng
/xingzhongshusheng [province], and the lu of Jiaxing is in the jurisdiction of the xingsheng of
Jiangsu and Zhejiang .
51
Wu Zhen , and Qian Fen (late 17th century), Meidaoren yi mo [2 juan], Wen yuan
ge Si ku quan shu dian zi ban (Xianggang: Di zhi wen hua chu ban you xian gong si; Taibei Shi: Han zhen
tu shu suo ying gong si zong jing xiao, 2006. Electronic book, volume 1, abstract part), 1.
49
was not sagacious. Wu Zhens paintings of landscapes and bamboos were also
documented as noble and self-contained, which reflected the Chinese notion of the style
is the man himself He (the artist) should nourish in his bosom cheerfulness and a
happy mood. That is, if he can develop a natural, sincere, gentle, and honest heart, then
he will immediately be able to comprehend the aspects of tears and smiles and of objects,
pointed or oblique, bent or inclined, and they will be so clear in his mind that he will be
able to put them down spontaneously with his paint brush.52
Wu Zhen was born in the second year after the Southern Song dynasty fell to
the hands of the Yuan dynasty established by the Mongol people. Disappointed by
both the defeat of the Southern Song dynasty which was ruled by the Han Chinese
people, and the fact that the Yuan rulers were suspicious of and discriminated
against the Han Chinese people, Wu Zhen chose to become a recluse instead of
pursuing a political career with his Confucian scholarship and literary learning. He
devoted his time to the study of the Yi Jing [Book of Changes] and fortune-telling.
His solitude and righteousness (as interpreted by Ming and Qing dynasty literati)
were the source of his highly-appreciated landscape and ink bamboo paintings
which also bore such an independent and upright character53.
Wu Zhen was a true recluse, befriended only several Taoist and Buddhist
monks, in that he inscribed on his own paintings mei hua an zhu [the owner of
52
Guo Xi (11th century), Lin quan gao zhi , translated by Shio Sakanishi as An Essay on
Landscape Painting (London: J. Murray, 1935), 52.
53
Original Chinese: , , . , , ,
. Zhen Wu , and Fen Qian (late 17th century), Meidaoren yi mo [2
juan], Wen yuan ge Si ku quan shu dian zi ban (Xianggang: Di zhi wen hua chu ban you xian gong si;
Taibei Shi: Han zhen tu shu suo ying gong si zong jing xiao, 2006. Electronic book, volume 1, original
preface), 1.
50
the hut of plum blossom and did not welcome other peoples inscriptions. Due to
his remote and detached character, he would not accept a life dependent on other
people.54
54
Original Chinese: , , , ,
. , . Zhen Wu , and Fen Qian (late 17th century),
Meidaoren yi mo [2 juan], Wen yuan ge Si ku quan shu dian zi ban (Xianggang: Di zhi wen
hua chu ban you xian gong si; Taibei Shi: Han zhen tu shu suo ying gong si zong jing xiao, 2006.
Electronic book, volume 1, original preface), 1.
51
APPENDIX B DOCUMENTED WU ZHEN STYLE

From account of the late Yuan dynasty scholar, connoisseur, and art collector Xia
Wenyan as recorded in Tu hui bao jian [Evaluation of Paintings] (compiled in 1365 and
1366), and which is the first record of Wu Zhen in the art-historical discussion (instead of
in poems and inscriptions), we can sense that Wu Zhens paintings were not thought
highly of by contemporary and slightly later scholar-official (literati artists) circle:
Wu Zhen has the style name Zhonggui and the recluse name Taoist Plum
Blossom. His hometown is Weitang town in Jiaxing. [Wu Zhens landscapes are
learned from [the] Ju Ran [style]. His imitational and collaborative works are all
very talented. But his own works [show that he was] not concentrated/serious
[on/about painting], which displays his exceptionally inattentive and slack attitude
[towards painting]. He could also paint ink bamboo and ink flowers.55 C
From Xia Wenyans remarks on Wu Zhen, we can deduce that his painting style was
considered by Yuan dynasty connoisseurs and scholar-officials to be loose and careless
ten years after Wu Zhens death (1354). Though Xia did not point out clearly what
exactly Wu Zhens style was li e, we can get a rough idea about Wu Zhens painting
style through a comparison with Autumn Colors on the Qiao and Hua Mountains (Figure
102) by Zhao Mengfu, the leading scholar-official-artist in early Yuan dynasty who
promoted the archaism revolution in painting. Zhaos style was influential in Yuan and
his impact continued in the Ming dynasty as well, as we can see in the Ming scholarofficial Sun Zuos (around 1340-1424) Cang luo ji, in which Zhao was mentioned as
55
Xia Wenyan (14th century), and Han Ang, Tu hui bao jian : [5 juan] (Taipei: Taiwan
shang wu yin shu guan, 1983, volume 5), 10.
52
superior to Wu Zhen (and all other contemporary painters) in painting. It is possible that
Wus style was very different from Zhaos, whose work exemplifies careful brushwielding, well-controlled, fine brushstrokes, and explicit imitation of Northern Song
landscape masters (the islets by the river side are an emulation of Dong Yuans Wintry
Trees by a Lake, Figure 103).
Another two pieces of documented activities of Wu Zhen that are closest in time to
Wu Zhens lifetime are Tao Zongyis (fl. 1360-1368) Shu shi hui yao
[Biographies of Calligraphers] and Sun Zuos (around 1340-1424) Cang
luo ji . The account in Shu shi hua yao (completed in 1376) of Wu Zhen was brief
and imprecise, but it pointed out Wu Zhens calligraphy and painting habits: that Wu
Zhen is good at cursive script, and that he likes composing monochrome ink paintings
(two common characteristics seen in Wu Zhen attributions).
Wu Zhen has the style name Zhonggui, he is a native of Jiaxing. His cursive
script is learned after Gong Guang56. He was also good at painting monochrome
landscapes. 57 D (Tao Zongyis Shu shi hui yao, bu yi)
And a long account of Wu Zhens personality and paintings by Sun Zuo in Cang luo
ji indicates Sun Zuos admiration (which was rare in his time) for Wu Zhens paintings,
though he also acknowledged that Wu is not a first-class painter of his time (similar
judgment to that of Xia Wenyan). However, Sun Zuos opinion of Wu Zhens paintings
56
Gong Guang (late 9th - early 10th century) is a monk in the Tang dynasty who was recorded as a
master of the wild cursive and the clerical script. His wild cursive style is said to be a follower of the Tang
calligrapher Zhang Xu who was an expert in wild cursive script. No extant works of his are available.
57
Tao Zongyi (fl. 1360-1368), Shu shi hui yao [9 juan, bu yi], Wen yuan ge Si ku quan
shu dian zi ban (Xianggang: Di zhi wen hua chu ban you xian gong si; Taibei Shi: Han zhen tu shu suo
ying gong si zong jing xiao, 2006, electronic book, bu yi), 33.
53
implies a new perspective compared with Xia Wenyan: though Wu is not a first-class
painter of his time, the unpopularity of his paintings is to a large extent due to the
misreading and incomprehension of his contemporaries because of Wus unique
personality and painting style. Suns view on Wu Zhen also confirms the belief of
traditional Chinese scholar-official artists and connoisseurs that the style is the man
himself, which may explain why Wu Zhen, though not welcomed during his lifetime,
was listed as one of the four masters of the Yuan dynasty (because of his loyalty to the
former Song dynasty and his upright and independent character typical for a laudable
Confucian scholar) in the Ming dynasty:
Wu Zhen Zhonggui of Jiahe was good at painting landscapes, bamboos and
plants. [His works] are ranked in the category of extreme fine quality [miao pin58].
His wor s excellence is no less than Xu Daoning and Wen Tong [Yu e . Yu es
bamboo [paintings] overshadow his [landscape] paintings, [whereas] Zhongguis
[landscape] paintings overshadow his bamboo [paintings]. In the recent years,
Zhongguis paintings are excellent only next to Zhao [Mengfu Wenmin and his
son [Zhao Yuan] from the Wu area. As for Zhongguis [landscape paintings, there
is no negative view. As for his ink bamboo [paintings], some commented that they
bear a sense of pedantry and sourness.
Zhongguis personality is upright and aloof, detached and disciplined, his
recluse name is Taoist Plum Blossom. [If anyone wants to] get a painting from Wu
Zhen, he cannot succeed by force even if he has power, only when [someone] has
placed high-quality paper and brush on the desk, and [waits until] Wu Zhen
58
Miao pin (of extremely fine quality) is the third class in painting evaluation, next to yi pin (of
untrammeled quality) and shen pin (of divine quality), and is better than neng pin (of capable quality).
Therefore miao pin is only a mediocre praise if not an impolite comment.
54
willingly arrives at the desk himself and [paints] as he wishes, can he get [the
painting]. Thus rarely did Zhonggui paint on a silk surface. When I stayed in
Xiuzhou (Jiaxing, Wu Zhens hometown) for three years, and visited all the
scholar-officials to find Wu Zhens paintings, but I did not find one. So in the next
hundred years, how few people will know and like his paintings? In the summer of
the jiachen year of the Zhizheng reign, my friend Zhang Xiangnan brought me an
in bamboo painting from his relative Xuan Los collection and said You have
always loved Zhongguis paintings, please write an inscription on it.
In my eyes, Zhonggui is a recluse. His interest is usually in the mountains and
forests, therefore his brushstrokes bear a peaceful and distant character, and lack
the spirit of the aristocrats and their followers. [Is the fact that] the commentators
thin poorly of Wu Zhens paintings due to this reason? And [is the fact that] those
things that rely on ink and brush to be circulated do not rely solely on one aspect
[of their quality] due to the sound, the color, or the odor of the bamboo, which
could become a fascination [for the people who love them] that the bamboo
[paintings] became widespread? If yes, then [it is because of] the peaceful and
distant qualities that are imbedded in the bamboos nature. Nowadays people point
at Wu Zhens paintings and say They bear the spirit of the mon who resides in a
mountain. The bamboos are suited to Wu Zhens nature, how can one criticize him
[for this spirit]?
One thousand mu59 [of bamboos] growing on the side of the Wei River are as
many as the thatches and hemps which are tall, straight, vigorous and flourishing
59
Mu is a traditional Chinese measuring unit. One mu is about 667 square meters.
55
and attract peoples love, whether they now them [the bamboos qualities] or not.
As for [those bamboos that grow] in the wild, accompanied by the smokes and
dews, the heavy rains and severe sunshine, or on the cliffs just below the clouds
which take the shape of lying down and whose ages vary from too young to too old,
whose qualities vary from robust to weak, only those hermits who observe them for
months and years can understand them.
To as for the publics understanding with what the public is unaware of, this
is no different from placing pickled calamus and sheep dates60 beside a ding pot
that cooks the Cantor's giant softshell turtle61. [Peoples opinions differ even more
than this, therefore I feel compelled to speak for Wu Zhen, and write my defense
down here.62 E
One anecdote recorded by Dong Qichang (1555-1636) on one of the fisherman
paintings associated with Wu Zhen (and recorded in Yu Fengqing Shu hua ti ba ji
[Records of Inscriptions on Paintings and Calligraphies]) reinforces the notion of Xia
Wenyan and Sun Zuo (and of many other traditional Chinese scholar-officials) that the
style is the man himself though it was Dong Qichang who promoted Wu Zhens status
as one of the four masters of the Yuan dynasty, here in the account below, Dong
obviously did not thin highly of Wu Zhens artistic accomplishment, for he employed
60
Pickled calamus are the beloved food of the Wen Emperor of the Zhou dynasty. Sheep dates are the
beloved food of Zeng Dian in the Spring and Autumn period (470 BC 476 BC). Pickled calamus and
sheep dates are therefore used as an idiom which refers to beloved food.
61
In the Spring and Autumn period, someone presented the Duke Ling of Zheng, and the Duke cooked it in
a ding pot and shared it with many of his court officials. Therefore the term to coo the Cantor's giant
softshell turtle in the ding pot is used to describe some nice food that many people love eating.
2006, electronic book, volume 3), 6-7.
62
56
the term miao pin (as Sun Zuo did) which refers only to a third-class art work, when
referring to one fisherman painting of Wu Zhen. But Dong praised Wus wor s highly for
bearing the spiritual vividness and boundlessness natural to a recluse scholar
(compared with professional artists wor s which are s illful yet constrained by
established conventions). Therefore it is reasonable to infer that Wu Zhens status of
being one of the four masters of the Yuan dynasty and a prototype of the orthodox
school of painting (in the Ming and Qing dynasty) comes more from the Confucian
definition of an upright scholar (if not a scholar-official) and less from his achievements
in the art of painting:
The Taoist Plum Blossom Gui [Zhen Zhongguis paintings are learned from
Ju Ran [that is, the tradition of Dong Yuan, and Ju Ran (10th century)]. He
inscribed mostly Monk Chuanzi63 [Decheng s Paddling Poems [on his paintings].
Wang Wen e in Suzhou has in his family collection Wu Zhens Fishermans Joy,
which is a work of extremely fine quality [miao pin]. [Wu Zhen] was originally
living next door to Sheng [Mao] Zizhao. The number of people coming from
everywhere to purchase [Sheng Mao Zizhaos paintings with gold and sil is great,
whereas [Wu Zhen Zhongguis door is rarely noc ed on. [Wu Zhens wife
therefore laughed at him. [Wu Zhen] Zhonggui said It will not be li e this in
twenty years. It turned out to be just as Wu Zhen predicted. Although Sheng [Mao]
is skillful in painting, he is actually confined by the conventions of ink paintings.
63
Monk Chuanzi is a monk and poet in the Tang dynasty. His name is Decheng.
57
[Wu Zhen Zhongguis boundlessness bears the manner of a recluse, and is this not
what is called spiritual [vividness]? Inscribed by [Dong Qichang] Xuanzai. 64 F
Besides Wu Zhens personality and biographical information, as known from Qian
Fen, Xia Wenyan, Tao Zongyi, Sun Zuo and Dong Qichang, Wu Zhens younger
contemporary Ni Zan gives us a hint in one of his poems (in his anthology Qing bi ge
quan ji) about Wu Zhens landscape style, which is characterized by watery (almost
transparent) and gentle brush strokes:
The Taoist [Wu Zhen] lives in the Hut of the Plum Blossom, under his
windows a stone zun wine vessel if filled with pini pollen wine. After he gets drunk,
he wields his brush and paints the landscape, on which the mountain mists and
clouds are so watery and soft that [the brushstrokes] are barely observable.
Wu [Zhen Zhongguis Landscapes65 G
According to Ni Zans description, Wu Zhens landscape style is certainly not that
of a professional painter Wus lifestyle is also not that of a professional artist (and Nis
comment that Wu Zhen paints when he gets drun confirms Sun Zuos observations that
people cannot get a painting from Wu Zhen by force and that Wu paints only when he
wishes to). Ni Zans observation of Wu Zhens moist and mellow landscapes is
reminiscent of the Song landscape masters: the Northern Song scholar-official artist Mi
Fu (1051-1107) who, together with his son Mi Youren initiated the Mi-style
characterized by ink wash and wet ink dots that depict the cloudy and hazy atmosphere in
64
Yu Fengqing (17th century), Yu Fengqing Shu hua ti ba ji [Records of Inscriptions on Paintings

and Calligraphies] (Shanghai: Shen zhou guo guang Press, 1911, volume 8), 8.
65
Ni Zan , Qing bi ge quan ji (Taibei: National Central Library Taiwan, 1970, volume 7),
328-329.
58
the southeast part of China; the Southern Song court painters Xia Gui (Mountain Market,
Clear with Rising Mist, Figure 104) and Ma Yuan (Scholar Viewing a Waterfall, Figure
105); the Southern Song Zen painters Yujian (Mountain Market, Clear with Rising Mist,
Figure 106) and Muqi (Wild Geese on a Sandbank, Figure 107).
Ni Zans observation of Wu Zhens landscape style indicates Wu Zhens affiliation
with the Song landscape tradition (misty atmosphere and wet brushstrokes), which is
quite different from the other literati artists of the Yuan dynasty (the most classical of
whom are Huang Gongwang, Ni Zan and Wang Meng) who deployed mostly dry
brushstrokes without paying attention to the mountain mists and clouds (which is an
essential in Song landscapes) and invade the pictorial space with numerous inscriptions
and poems (which gradually becomes a necessary component for literati paintings to be
fully and clearly comprehended in the Yuan and later dynasties). The dry, linear, (later)
calligraphic landscapes together with the indispensable inscriptions (which sometimes
take over the sovereignty of the painting) have become the norm of acknowledged literati
landscape paintings in the late Ming dynasty. Therefore it is highly likely that many of
the paintings attributed to Wu Zhen are not from the masters hand, since his aesthetic
(based on Song landscape models) is contrary to the established Ming standard of literati
paintings. And Ni Zans comments on Wus misty and cloudy landscape style and Sun
Zuos experience of searching in vain for Wus paintings shortly after Wus death (as
well as the Yuan connoisseur Xia Wenyans judgment of Wu being a mediocre painter
and both Sun Zuo and Dong Qichangs evaluation of Wus wor s being miaopin)
increases the probability that Wu Zhens paintings were closely related to the Song
paradigms and not recognized as fine works of collectable quality even in the Yuan
59
dynasty (not to mention in the Ming dynasty when the anti-Song literati aesthetics was
strengthened).
In general, the criticisms and observations from (selected) scholar-officials, artists
and connoisseurs in the Yuan and Ming dynasty in the above-mentioned records of Wu
Zhen point out several aspects of Wu Zhens life, personality and artistic career Wu
Zhen is a non-professional painter and is not considered a first-rate painter (either literati
or professional) during his lifetime (and through the late Yuan and early Ming dynasty,
roughly through the 14th century); his artistic style absorbed several characteristics of
some Northern Song landscape masters (especially that of Ju Ran); he often composes
monochrome ink paintings (landscapes and bamboos in particular); he is considered as a
recluse painter with an independent, untrammeled and distant personality, which is
reflected in his paintings as peaceful, upright bamboos and boundless, secluded
landscapes, and revealed in his ways of wielding the brush as moist and gentle
brushstrokes.
A section of preface to Wu Zhens (ascribed to) Zhu pu [manual of bamboo painting]
indicates Wu Zhens admiration for the scholar-official painter Wen Tong and Gao
Kegongs in bamboo paintings as well his disapproval of the professional painters
skillfulness (which agrees with the Ming dynasty literati painters and theorists
dichotomist perception of amateur/scholar-official and professional artists and their
contempt for the latter):
Although there were a myriad of ink bamboo [paintings] since the ancient
times, however only [the ink bamboo paintings of] Wen [Tong] Huzhou of the
Song dynasty stand out as [belonging to] the divine category, free from the
60
artisans vulgarity. In the recent years, Minister Gao [Kegong Yanjing66 has a full
grasp of his [Wen Tong] ways [of ink bamboo paintings]. I got much instruction
from him. This manual [of ink bamboo paintings] is for the popularization of his
painting methods.67
Though this piece of preface discloses no clue about the specific way Wen Tong and
Gao Kegong painted in bamboos, it reveals the authors inclination towards the
paintings that are in the divine category which are free from the artisans vulgarity,
which perhaps influenced Dong Qichangs comparison of Wu Zhen (recluses
boundlessness) and the professional Sheng Mao (confined by conventions). The
dichotomy of professional versus literati-amateur painters is a Northern Song creation
(Su Shis If one is going to discuss a painting in terms of li eness, one might as well
parade it for the neighbors children68), but in the Northern Song dynasty, the two ends
of the contrast is representational and expressionistic aesthetics. In the Yuan dynasty, the
two sides of opposition become modernism and archaism (Zhao Mengfus comment that
What is important in painting is the touch of archaism. If one painting does not bear an
66
Gao Yanjing (1248-1310) was a Yuan dynasty poet and painter, he also served in the government and his
highest administrative rank was shangshu [minister]. He was a friend of several scholar-officials in
the Yuan dynasty including Zhao Mengfu, and was a famous literati painter in his lifetime. Gao Kegong
was an official in the province of Jiangsu and Zhejiang from the 28th year of the Zhiyuan reign (1291) to
the 1st year of the Dade reign (1297), and he also lived in Hangzhou (todays Zhejiang province) in his old
age. Since during the time period from 1291 to 1297, Wu Zhen was only between 11 to 17 years old, it is
more likely that Wu Zhen met and studied with Gao Kegong after the latter settled down in Hangzhou and
before Gao died in 1310.
67
Original Chinese: , , , .
,. . Zhen Wu , and Fen Qian (late 17th
century), Meidaoren yi mo [2 juan], Wen yuan ge Si ku quan shu dian zi ban (Xianggang: Di
zhi wen hua chu ban you xian gong si; Taibei Shi: Han zhen tu shu suo ying gong si zong jing xiao, 2006.
Electronic book, volume 2), 8.
68
Su Shi , Shu Yanling Wang Zhubu Suohua Zhezhi Ershou

(Two Poems on a Flower Painting by Wang Zhubu of Yanling), in Su Shi (1037-1101),
Su Shi shi ji [Anthology of Su Shis poems , edited by Wengao Wang, Fanli Kong, and Yingliu Feng
(Beijing: Zhong hua shu ju: Xin hua shu dian Beijing fa xing suo fa xing, 1982, volume 5), 1525.
61
archaic character, it is worthless even if it is very s illful69). And in the Ming dynasty,
the conflict transforms from a dispute over specific pictorial criteria to a division
according to the status of the artist: professional and non-professional (literati) painters,
as reflected in the preface.
In another painting Si you tu [Four friends] ascribed to Wu Zhen, the inscription
deployed the word in play which may refer to a self-effacing expression or the
spontaneous painting method typical of literati painters. The inscription reads:
The master Guquan [literally: ancient well] has long asked me for some ink
play with a piece of paper, [today] I barely satisfied his request.70
This piece of inscription confirms Wu Zhens playful attitude towards painting
illustrated by Ni Zans comment (that Wu Zhen wields his brush and paints some
landscapes when he gets drun ) and Xia Wenyans judgment of Wu Zhen being a not
concentrated/serious, inattentive and slac painter. Though Sun Zuo commented on the
difficulty of requesting a painting directly from Wu Zhen in his Cang luo ji, it is possible
that master Guquan was a close friend of Wu Zhen, therefore it was easier for his wish to
be satisfied. Though it is difficult to infer from the inscription who the master Guquan
is, the name sounds li e some Buddhist or Taoist mon , and master is usually a
respectful form of address for them.
The 17th century official, calligrapher and painting theorist Zhu Mouyin commented
on Wu Zhens association with the Jiaxing-based amateur painter (who was not serving
69
Pan Yungao, Collection of Yuan Dynasty Painting and Calligraphy Criticism (Changsha: Hunan Fine
Arts Publishing, 2002), 255.
70
Original Chinese: , . Zhen Wu , and Fen Qian (late 17th

century), Meidaoren yi mo [2 juan], Wen yuan ge Si ku quan shu dian zi ban (Xianggang: Di
zhi wen hua chu ban you xian gong si; Taibei Shi: Han zhen tu shu suo ying gong si zong jing xiao, 2006.
Electronic book, volume 2), 9.
62
the government either) Zhang Guan and Wus influence on Zhang in his Hua shi hui yao
[Compendium of Painting History]:
[Zhang Guan] Keguan71 associates with Wu [Zhen] Zhonggui, therefore his
(Keguans) brushstro es are of ancient simplicity and forceful maturity, without
vulgarity and feebleness.72 H
Though Zhu Mouyin did not mention Wu Zhens artistic style concretely (ancient
simplicity and forceful maturity are hard to define visually), his comment suggests his
preference for paintings (archaism) and painters (literati painters untrammeledness
versus professional painters vulgarity) as a late Ming literatus.
71
Zhang Guan was a painter in the Yuan dynasty who was from Fengjing (todays Shanghai) and moved to
Jiaxing at the end of the Yuan dynasty before he moved to Changzhou (todays Suzhou, Jiangsu) during the
reign (1368-1398) of the Hongwu Emperor of Ming dynasty. Wu Zhen died in 1354, therefore his
association with Zhang Guan happened when the latter was in Jiaxing.
72
Zhu Mouyin (17th century A.D.), Hua shi hui yao (Hong Kong: Di zhi wen hua chu
ban you xian gong si; Taibei Shi: Han zhen tu shu suo ying gong si zong jing xiao, 2006. E-book, volume
3), 41.
63
APPENDIX C AN INTRODUCTION TO CHINESE LANDSCAPE

PAINTINGS
Landscape in Chinese Art History
In the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) and before that, landscape was used as a
background and decoration for figure paintings. Landscape did not become an
independent genre until the Five Dynasties (907-979 CE) period in Chinese art history. In
the Ming dynasty, landscape painting has been theorized by scholars and literati painters
who considered those landscapes made by amateur or literati painters the highest rank of
Chinese art.
The rise of landscape has to do with the fall of the feudal aristocracy accompanying
the downfall of the Tang dynasty (907 CE) and the founding of the Northern Song
dynasty (960 CE) which adopted the nation-wide merit-based examination system (the
history of which can be traced back to the Emperor Wu of Han, who in 124 BCE
established Taixue, literally Great Study or Learning as a national university for
learning and preparing officials for the government) which allows gifted men born into a
humble family to enter the government service (whereas in the previous Tang dynasty,
the system was more favorable for the politically well-established classes); therefore, the
examination system rendered possible the formation of a scholars/literati class, the
establishment of which led to the advent of a new painting genre: literati landscape.73
Landscape, shan shui, which literally translates as mountains and waters, is
73
For a more detailed description see Martin Powers, When Is a Landscape Li e a Body? in Landscape,
Culture, and Power in Chinese Society (ed. Wen-hsin Yeh,Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies,
University of California, Berkeley, Center for Chinese Studies, 1998), 1-22.
64
considered more significant for a scholars mind than the other major subjects of Chinese
painting (figure paintings, narrative paintings, and genre paintings) Why does a
virtuous man take delight in landscapes? It is for these reasons: that in a rustic retreat he
may nourish his nature; that amid the carefree play of streams and rocks, he may take
delight; that he may constantly meet in the country fishermen, woodcutters, and hermits,
and see the soaring of the cranes, and hear the crying of the monkeys. The din of the
dusty world and the locked-in-ness of human habitations are what human nature
habitually abhors; while, on the contrary, haze, mist, and the haunting spirits of the
mountains are what human nature seeks, and yet can rarely find. 74 A
Northern and Southern School of Landscape

The division of the Northern (later defined as professional) and Southern (later
defined as amateur/literati) landscapes artists has been around for a long time, and has
been mentioned in numerous painting criticisms since the Northern Song dynasty (and
theorized most conclusively by Dong Qichang in the Ming dynasty as two artistic styles
as well as social divisions). The distinction in Chinese painting history appeared during
the mid-Tang dynasty (beginning with Wang Wei, 701-761, as initiator of the Southern
School, and Li Sixun, 651-716, as predecessor of the Northern School). The Tang
Northerners (Li Sixun and his son Li Zhaodao in particular) used blue, green and gold
pigments in composing landscapes, and sketched the outlines carefully out before
applying the colors into the shapes; whereas the Tang Southerners (Wang Wei in
particular) applied mainly monochrome ink in composing landscapes in a meditative way
suitable for the Chan (Zen) Buddhist practice. This formulaic division of the Southern
74
Guo Xi (11th century), Lin quan gao zhi , translated by Shio Sakanishi as An Essay on
Landscape Painting (London: J. Murray, 1935), 32.
65
and Northern schools of painting reflected merely a divergence in geographical features
without stylistic predilection in the 10th century Five Dynasties period (Dong Yuan- and
Ju Ran-style/ the Southern school depicting the topographical features of the Yangzi
River-district landscape versus Jing Hao and Guan Tong tyle/the Northern school
depicting the scenery unique to the Yellow River); in the Northern Song dynasty (9601126 CE), the scholar-officials who made ink play in their spare time resisted the idea
of visual likeness and fine brushwork typical for court paintings: If one is going to
discuss a painting in terms of li eness, one might as well parade it for the neighbors
children75; in the Yuan dynasty (14th century), literati/scholar-official artists struggled to
emulate the Northern Song landscape masters and since the Southern school is
technically less demanding for amateur imitation and lends itself to expressionistic ink
play (whereas the Northern school style requires more skills and efforts), it gradually
became the favorite style of the scholar-official artists; in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644),
the connoisseurs and scholar-official artists summarized the painting theories and
practices of the former dynasties and designated the Southern School style as the
orthodox of both literati art and paintings in general. Literati art refers to an artistic style
that deployed monochrome ink, emphasized spontaneity in composition, was usually
accompanied by inscriptions, was made for the artists self-enjoyment instead of
marketing purpose, and was ideally made by the scholar-official-painter-calligrapher-poet.
The choice of style also carries the value judgment of being either orthodox or nonorthodox. And because of the craving of the newly-established business people to be
75
Su Shi, Shu Yanling Wang Zhubu Suohua Zhezhi Ershou (Two Poems on a Flower Painting by Wang
Zhubu of Yanling), in Shi Su, Wengao Wang, Fanli Kong, and Yingliu Feng, Su Shi shi (Beijing: Zhong
hua shu ju: Xin hua shu dian Beijing fa xing suo fa xing, 1982, volume 5): 15256. Quoted in Li-ling Hsiao
and David A. Ross, Ta ing Pains to Explain Li Kerans The Pain of Composition, Southeast Review of
Asian Studies 32, (2010): 145.
66
recognized and accepted by the scholar-official circles, a group of professional artists
working in the literati manner were born in the Suzhou area (the economically richest
area), satisfying the needs of the new market. These professional artists working in the
literati style were despised by writers (also scholar-officials who had the right to write
history) of Chinese art history as inferior to literati artists as a result of the intelligentsia
who ascended more to power (than in the Yuan dynasty) and endeavored to secure their
social status through confirming their artistic canon. The late-Ming connoisseur and
painter-calligrapher Dong Qichang summed it all up in his posthumous anthology Hua
chan shi sui bi [Essays Composed in the Painted Zen Study (and showed his predilection
for the Southern school) as follows:
The literati paintings began with Wang [Wei] Youcheng. After him came
Dong Yuan, the monk Ju Ran, Li Cheng, Fan Kuan, who are all his legal descents.
Li [Gonglin] Longmian, Wang [Shen] Jinqing, Mi [Fu] Nangong and his son Huer
[Mi Youren] all learned from Dong [Yuan] and Ju [Ran]. The four great masters of
the Yuan dynasty, namely Huang [Gongwang] Zijiu, Wang [Meng] Shuming, Ni
[Zan] Yuanzhen, Wu [Zhen] Zhonggui were all faithful followers of them [Dong
Yuan and Ju Ran]. In our [Ming] dynasty, Wen [Zhengming] and Shen [Zhou] also
inherited their legacy. As for Ma [Yuan] and Xia [Gui], as well as Li Tang and Liu
Songnian, they belonged to the Great General Lis [Li Sixun lineage. Their style is
not easily learned by [painters of] our [style].
The Chan Buddhism was divided into the Southern and Northern sects in the
Tang dynasty. The Southern and Northern schools of painting also diverged in the
Tang dynasty, but not according to the geographical locations. The Northern school
67
includes Li Sixun and his son Li Zhaodao in the Tang dynasty, whose style was
inherited by Zhao Gan in the Northern Song dynasty, and Zhao Boju, Zhao Bosu,
Ma [Yuan], Xia [Gui] in the Southern Song dynasty. The Southern school started
with Wang [Wei Mojies in wash method which changed the s etch-andmodeling-stroke skill. His style was inherited by Zhang Zao, Jing [Hao], Guan
[Tong], Guo Zhongshu, Dong [Yuan], Ju [Ran] and the Mis [Mi Fu and Mi
Youren], and further by the four masters of the Yuan dynasty. After the sixth
patriarch of the Southern Zen Buddhism Huineng, the Southern Zen school
diverged into [the Hongzhou school led by] Ma [Zudao] Ju, [and later to] the
Yunmen [school], the Linji [school, and so forth] and flourished, whereas the
Northern school of Zen Buddhism declined. As for what [Wang] Mojie called
[painted clouds, pea s, and roc s that are superior to natures creation, he can
paint with such ease because he studied from nature. [Su Shi] Dongpo praised Wu
Daozi and Wang Weis painted walls [and added] that I have no criticism for
[Wang Wei. This is a wise remar .
At the end of the Yuan dynasty, there were two styles [of painting]. One is
[the style of] Dong Yuan, the other is [the style of Li Cheng. Li Chengs painting
[style is also supported by Guo [Xi Heyang, and [Dong Yuans painting [style is
supported by the monk Ju Ran. However, the four great masters of the Yuan
Huang [Gongwang], Ni [Zan], Wu [Zhen] and Wang [Meng] all became famous
through the style of Dong [Yuan] and Ju [Ran] and they are well-known throughout
the country till now. As for those who deployed the style of Li [Cheng] and Guo
[Xi], [for example] Zhu [Derun] Zemin, Tang [Di] Zihua, Yao Yanqing, they were
68
restricted by the methods developed by their predecessors, and could not be
independent [or make their own name]. This is similar to the case of the Southern
school of Zen Buddhism from whose many schools the Linji school stood out
solely as the thriving one. It is necessary to maintain and forward the skills and
methods of the forebears. Are there such competent and brilliant men [for this
mission]?76 B
Wu Zhen as Orthodox Literati Painter

Wu Zhen, who never took up a governmental position in his life time, was
recognized by Ming (and later Qing) dynasty orthodox/official painting schools as one of
the role models and forebears (four great masters of the Yuan dynasty) of orthodox
literati painting. The relationship of literati painters and the official/court painting
academy went through ups and downs in the course of dynastic Chinese history. In the
Northern Song dynasty, the time when the genre literati painting had newly come into
being, the literati painters enjoyed a relatively close relationship with the orthodox
painting school, because many of the literati painters also held some position in the
government. Though the literati painters aesthetics differed from those of the painters in
the official academy, they were nevertheless supported by the court patrons (such as the
emperors, especially Emperor Huizong of Song dynasty) who themselves were well
equipped with the ability to appreciate and practice literati paintings due to their
traditional Confucian education. The court patrons not only encouraged the fine arts like
painting and calligraphy, but also shared many of the aesthetics and principles of the
literati painters.
76
Dong Qichang (1555-1636), Hua chan shi sui bi: 3 juan (Shanghai: Sao ye
Publishing Houes, 1928, Volume 2), 15-16.
69
This proximity and familiarity of the ruling class and the literati/amateur painters
deteriorated during the Yuan dynasty when the political atmosphere became tense, and
the ruling Mongol court cut the positions of Han Chinese people serving in the
government. Therefore, more Chinese scholar officials became painters who did not hold
government appointment (and supported themselves through selling their lands and
fortunes, teaching, doctoring, fortunetelling or writing epitaphs and stageplays) and
painted intentionally as a protest against the Yuan court style (which was a continuation
of the Southern Song court style) and turned to the Northern Song (a time when China
was more unified and the scholar-officials had a better social standing) landscapes for
inspiration.
In the Ming dynasty, the tension and discrepancy between official/court painters in
the academy and the literati (amateur) painters increased because the court patrons in the
Ming dynasty were more interested in commissioning portraits for themselves, narrative
paintings based on historical accounts for political moralization purposes, or chromatic
blue and green landscapes depicting mythological motifs, whereas the literati painters
were more inclined to monochrome landscapes and ink wash still life paintings.
In the Qing dynasty, the Emperors Kangxi (reigned 1662-1722) and Qianlong
(reigned 1735-1796) in particular made a contribution to merge (not intentionally) the
two schools (amateur literati painters and professional official painters) through the court
patrons own interest in the literati style and aesthetics. Therefore many painters trained
in the literati style were able to assume positions in the imperial painting academy. They
became officially recognized painters (orthodox school) and helped shape the account of
art history through their writings, critiques and painting theories.
70
The nomination of the four great masters of the Yuan dynasty was made by Dong
Qichang, himself a literati painter, calligrapher and connoisseur, in the Ming dynasty.
Since the painters of the orthodox school in the Qing dynasty were mostly his pupils and
successors, they adhered to Dongs classification of the Northern
(official/professional/court painters) and Southern (literati/amateur painters) schools of
painting as well as the superiority of the Southern school.
Therefore it is not difficult to understand why Wu Zhen was deemed a predecessor
of orthodox painting school in the Ming and Qing dynasty though he himself had no
contact with the politically/artistically influential groups during his life time.77
Stylistic Changes
Two major stylistic changes loom in history of Chinese literati landscape paintings:
the first occurred in the transitional period from Southern Song dynasty to Yuan dynasty,
and the second took place in late Ming and early Qing dynasties. The stylistic revolutions
display many facets. First, the first revolution transformed Chinese landscape painting
from representational to non-representational; and the second pushed this trend even
further, depriving Chinese literati landscape painting of its picturesque/non-linear/moist
character and rendering it more calligraphic (biyi, sense for the brush)/linear/dry.
Second, from the 15th century on, the humanist78 tendency in literati paintings grew more
influential, which was reflected in painting as the enlargement and dominance of man77
For a more detailed account of the influence of court painting school on literati painters from the Song to
the Qing dynasty see Marilyn and Shen Fu, Studies in Connoisseurship: Chinese Paintings from the Arthur
M. Sackler Collection in New York and Princeton (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973), 1112.
78
The word humanist was deployed by Joan Stanley-Baker in The Transmission of Chinese Idealist
Painting to Japan: Notes on the Early Phase (1661-1799) (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies,
University of Michigan, 1992), 3.
71
made objects (pavilions, bridges, human activities) over natural landscape, and the
emphasis on calligraphic ways of wielding the brush over realism/picturesqueness (as the
Northern Song landscapists did). These changes went hand in hand with the shift of
interest from the natural world to the human world.
The viewpoint that landscape in China originated during the Five Dynasties and the
Northern Song dynasty (ca. 10th century CE) and that the northern and southern
styles have been developed (though defined later) by Jing Hao (and his student Guan
Tong) and Dong Yuan (and his younger contemporary Ju Ran) as well as their followers,
respectively, have given rise to one of the biggest discontinuities in Chinese art as regards
period style, one described by Max Loehr as so profound as none before or after that
time79, a breakthrough in the 3rd quarter of the 13th century, towards the end of the
Southern Song dynasty.
In the 3rd quarter of the 13th century, the early stage of the Yuan dynasty, the
Mongol governments political hostility towards the Chinese intelligentsia resulted in the
maturity of the literati paintings which became a more independent genre than in the
Song dynasty. The Yuan court was especially distrustful of the scholars in the south of
the China because the capital of the Southern Song dynasty was in Linan (Hangzhou) in
southeast China, and in that area there gathered a large number of well-educated scholars
who were loyal to the Song dynasty. Due to both the discrimination from the Yuan court
regarding political services and unwillingness to serve the foreign government, many
scholars in southeast China did not go into government services. Their painting styles
were therefore less influenced by the court paintings in the north (the Yuan capital near
79
Max Loehr, Chinese Painting after Sung (New Haven: Yale Art Gallery, 1967), 1.
72
present-day Beijing). The geographical locations of the Yuan literati painters contributed
to their emulation of the Southern school (instead of the Northern school) of the Northern
Song landscapists, and their status as non-court painters reinforced the tendency of
recognizing the Southern school as the mainstream literati school in the dynasties to
come.
73
APPENDIX D ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure D 1 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion, dated 1347.
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland.
74
Figure D 2 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), inscription of Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion,

dated 1347. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland.
75
Figure D 3 Wu Zhen, Fishermans Idyll, 1342. Palace Museum, Taipei. Inscription.
76
Figure D 4 Wu Zhen, Bamboo and Rock, 1347. Palace Museum, Taipei. Inscription.
77
Figure D 5 Wu Zhen, Twin Junipers, 1328. National Palace Museum, Taipei. Inscription
and signature.
78
Figure D 6 Wu Zhen, Central Mountain (or Mountain among Mountains), National

Palace Museum, Taipei. Inscription and seal.
79
Figure D 7 Zhao Mengfu, Autumn Colours on the Qiao and Hua Mountains, detail of
inscription, 1295. National Palace Museum, Taipei.
80
Figure D 8 Wang Hui. Snowy Studio in a Mountain Village after Wang Youcheng. 167477. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Detail of inscription.
Figure D 9 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), the character gou in the inscription of Poetic
Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion, dated 1347. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland.
81
Figure D 10 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), the character duan in the inscription of Poetic
Figure D 11 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), the character qing (clear) in the inscription of
Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion, dated 1347. The Cleveland Museum of Art,
Cleveland.
82
Figure D 12 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), the character gong in the inscription of Poetic
83
Figure D 13 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), the character qing (emotion) in the inscription of
Cleveland.
Figure D 14 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), the character he in the inscription of Poetic

84
Figure D 15 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), the character sha in the inscription of Poetic
Figure D 16 Wu Zhen (attributed to), 1st leaf of Manual of Bamboo in Monochrome Ink,
dated 1350. Album leaf, ink on paper, 41.3x52 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei.
85
Figure D 17 Wu Zhen (attributed to), leaf 17 jing shen zhu yi (the bamboos in a deep
alley) of Manual of Bamboo in Monochrome Ink, dated 1350. Album leaf, ink on paper,
41.3x52 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei.
86
Figure D 18 Wu Zhen (attributed to), leaf 19 qing feng wu bai gan (500 bamboos in clear
wind) of Manual of Bamboo in Monochrome Ink, dated 1350. Album leaf, ink on paper,
41.3x52 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei.
87
Figure D 19 Wu Zhen (attributed to), characters zhu and fang in leaf 20 xuan miao
guan zhu (the bamboos in the Xuanmiao Temple) of Manual of Bamboo in Monochrome
Ink, dated 1350. Album leaf, ink on paper, 41.3x52 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei.
Figure D 20 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), the character zhu and fang in the inscription of
Cleveland.
88
Figure D 21 Wu Zhen (attributed to), the characters mei, fang, and wei in Bamboo
and Rock, 1347. National Palace Museum, Taipei.
Figure D 22 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), the character mei, fang and wei in the
inscription of Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion, dated 1347. The Cleveland Museum
of Art, Cleveland.
89
Figure D 23 Wu Zhen (attributed to), the characters nian, yue, shu and the phrase
xi zuo in Central Mountain, 1366. National Palace Museum, Taipei. Detail of artists
seals.
90
Figure D 24 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), the character nian, yue, shu and the phrase xi
zuo in the inscription of Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion, dated 1347. The
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland.
91
Figure D 25 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), inscription (the characters nian and zuo) of Twin
Junipers, dated 1328. Hanging scroll, ink on silk, 180.1 x 11.4 cm. National Palace
Museum, Taipei.
92
Cleveland. Detail of artists seals.
93
Figure D 27 Wu Zhen (attributed to), inscription of Fisherman Recluse on Lake Dongting,

dated 1341. Hanging scroll, ink on paper, 146.4x58.6 cm. National Palace Museum,
Taipei.
94
Figure D 28 Wu Zhen, detail of inscription (the phrases Zhizheng, xi zuo and the
character mei) of Fishermans Idyll, 1342. Hanging scroll, ink on silk, 176.1x95.6 cm.
National Palace Museum, Taipei.
95
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. Detail of artists seals.
96
Figure D 30 Wu Zhen (attributed to), Central Mountain, 1366. National Palace Museum,
Taipei. Detail of artists seals.
97
Figure D 31 Wu Zhen (attributed to), Bamboo and Rock, 1347. National Palace Museum,
Taipei. Detail of artists seals.
98
Figure D 32 Wang Meng (1308-1385), detail of Bamboo Cottage by Lake Tai/Retreat at

Ju-qu, not dated. 68.7x42.5 cm, ink and color on paper. National Palace Museum, Taipei.
Figure D 33 Zhao Mengfu, The Mind Landscape of Xie Youyu, ca. 1287. Handscroll, ink
and colors on silk, 27.4 x 117.0 cm. Princeton Art Museum, Princeton.
99
Figure D 34 Ni Zan, detail of Panoramic View of the Lion Grove Garden, 1373.
Handscroll. Repository unknown.
100
Figure D 35 Wen Zhengming, detail of East Garden, 1530. Handscroll, ink and color on
silk, 30.2 x 126.4cm. Palace Museum, Beijing.
101
Figure D 36 Xu Ben, the Lion Grove Garden (shi zi lin). Album leaf, ink on paper, 22.5 x
27.1 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei.
102
Figure D 37 Wen Zhengming, Garden of the Inept Administrator (Zhuozheng Yuan tu

shi), leaf D, 1551. Album leaf, ink on paper, 26.4 x 27.3 cm. The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York.
103
Figure D 38 Qian Gu, The Small and Tranquil Garden (xiao zhi yuan). Album leaf, ink
and color on paper, 28.5 x 39.1 cm, from the album Travel Sketches (Ji xing tu ce).
104
Figure D 39 Wu Zhen, detail of fisherman in Fisherman (Lutan diaoting), ca. 1350.

Handscroll, ink on paper, 24.8 x 43.2 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
105
Figure D 40 Zhao Mengfu (1254-1322), detail of Autumn Color on the Qiao and Hua
Mountains, not dated. Handscroll, ink and color on paper, 24.8 x 93.2 cm. National
Palace Museum, Taipei.
106
Figure D 41 Zhao Mengfu, detail of River Village: Fishermans Joy, 1279-1322. Fan
painting mounted as album leaf, ink and color on silk, 28.6cm x 30cm. The Cleveland
Museum of Art, Cleveland.
107
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. Detail of pavilion.
Figure D 43 Wu Zhen, Fishermans Idyll, 1342. National Palace Museum, Taipei. Detail
of thatched gate.
108
Figure D 44 Wu Zhen (attributed to), Fisherman after Jing Hao, dated 1342. Freer
Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. Detail of pavilion.
109

Shanghai Museum of Art, Shanghai. Detail of pavilion.
110
Figure D 46 Ni Zan, detail of pavilion in Rongxi Studio, 1372. Hanging scroll, ink on
paper, 74.7 x 35.5 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei.
111
Figure D 47 Ni Zan, Rongxi Studio, 1372. Hanging scroll, ink on paper, 74.7 x 35.5 cm,
112
Figure D 48 Chu Te-juns Playing the Chin beneath Pines. National Palace Museum,
Taipei.
113
Figure D 49 Xiang Yuanbian (attributed), River Landscape, dated 1578. Metropolitan

Museum of Art, New York.
Figure D 50 Tang Yin, The Thatched Hut of Dreaming of an Immortal, early 16th century.
The Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
114
Figure D 51 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), Twin Junipers, dated 1328. Hanging scroll, ink on
silk, 180.1 x 11.4 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei.
115
Figure D 52 Wu Zhen (1280-1354, attributed to), left part of Mountain among Mountains,
dated 1336. Handscroll, ink on paper, 26.4 x 90.7 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei.
116
Figure D 53 Wu Zhen, Fishermans Idyll, 1342. Hanging scroll, ink on silk. National
Palace Museum, Taipei.
117
Figure D 54 Wu Zhen (attributed to), Fisherman (Lutan Diaoting), ca. 1350. Handscroll,
ink on paper, 24.8 x 43.2 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
118
Figure D 55 Wu Zhen (attributed to), Spring Dawn on a Clear River, undated. National
Palace Museum of Art, Taipei.
119
Figure D 56 Wu Zhen (attributed to), Painting of Latter Ode on the Red Cliff, undated.
120

Shanghai Museum of Art, Shanghai.
121
Figure D 58 Wu Zhen (attributed to), Fishermen after Jing Hao (section 1 and 2), ca.
1342. Handscroll, ink on paper, 32.5 x 565.6 cm. The Freer Gallery of Art, Washington,
D.C.
122
D.C.
123
D.C.
124
Figure D 61 Wu Zhen, detail of Bamboo and Rock, 1347. Hanging scroll, ink on paper,
90.6 x 42.5 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei.
125
Figure D 62 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), detail of Twin Junipers, dated 1328. Hanging scroll,
ink on silk, 180.1 x 11.4 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei.
126
Figure D 63 Wu Zhen (1280-1354, ascribed to), detail of Mountain among Mountains,

not dated. Handscroll, ink on paper, 26.4 x 90.7 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei.
127
Figure D 64 Wu Zhen (1280-1354, ascribed to), detail of Autumn Mountains. Hanging

scroll, ink on silk, 150.9 x 103.8 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei.
128

dated 1347. Hanging scroll, ink on paper, 23.8cm x 99.4cm. The Cleveland Museum of
Art, Cleveland.
Figure D 66 Wu Zhen (1280-1354), detail of Spring Dawn on a Clear River, Hanging

scroll, ink and light color on silk, 114.7x100.6 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei.
129
Figure D 67 Wu Zhen (1280-1354), detail of Hermit Fisherman on an Autumn River, not

dated. Hanging scroll, ink on silk, 189.1x88.5 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei.
130
Figure D 68 Li Gonglin, detail of Gathering at the West Garden, 1080. Handscroll, ink
on paper, 26.5 406cm. Unknown repository.
Figure D 69 Wang Fu, one section of the Study by Lake Tai at the Foot of a Hill (hu shan
shu wu), 1410. Handscroll, ink on paper, 27.5 x 820.5 cm. Liaoning Provincial Museum,
Shenyang.
131
Figure D 70 Du Qiong (1396-1474), one section of Befriending the Pines (you song tu).
Handscroll, ink and color on paper, 28.8 x 92.5cm. Palace Museum, Beijing.
Figure D 71 Qiu Ying (ca. 1494-1552), Orchid Pavilion. Fan painting, blue and green on
gold dusted paper, 21.5 x 31.2cm. Palace Museum, Beijing.
132
Figure D 72 Qiu Ying, detail of Garden for Self-Enjoyment, 1515-1552. Handscroll, ink
and slight color on silk, 27.8 x 381 cm. Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland.
133
Figure D 73 Wen Zhengming, detail of Tea Party at Mount. Hui, 1518. Handscroll, ink
and color on paper, 21.9 x 67cm. Palace Museum, Beijing.
134
Figure D 74 Wen Zhengming, detail of Purification Ritual at the Orchid Pavilion, 1542.
Handscroll, ink and color on gold dusted paper, 24.2 x 60.1cm. Palace Museum, Beijing.
135
Figure D 75 Obstructive scene made through the Taihu rock, Gate of Benevolence and
Longevity (Renshou men), Summer Palace, Beijing.
136
Figure D 76 Qu Ding (attributed to, active ca. 1023-1056), detail of Summer Mountains.
Handscroll, ink and light color on silk, 44.1 x 116.8 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York.
Figure D 77 Zhang Zeduan, detail of Spring Festival on the River (Qingming shang he tu),
early 12th century. Handscroll, in and color on silk, 25.5 x 525 cm. Palace Museum,
Beijing.
137
Figure D 78 Qian Xuan, detail of Wang Xizhi Watching Geese, ca. 1295. Handscroll, ink,
color and gold on paper, 23.2 x 92.7 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
138
Figure D 79 Xia Yuan, detail of The Yellow Pavilion, ca. 1350. Album leaf, ink on silk,
20.6 x 26.7 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
139
Figure D 80 Leng Mei, the Mountain Resort in Chengde (bi shu shan zhuang tu), 1713.
Hanging scroll, ink and color on silk, 254.8 x 172.5cm. Palace Museum, Beijing.
140
Figure D 81 Wang Yun, one section of Xiu Garden, 1715-1720. Handscroll, ink and color
on silk, 54 x 1294.9 cm.The Lvshun Museum, Dalian, China.
Figure D 82 Anonymous, right half of View of a Garden Villa, after Yuan Jiang (active
ca.1680-ca.1730), 18th century. Handscroll, ink and color on silk, 52.1 x 295 cm. The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
141
Figure D 83 Tang Yifen, detail of Love Garden (Aiyuan tu), 1848. Handscroll, ink and
color on paper, 59 x 160 cm. The British Museum, London.
142
Figure D 84 Shen Zhou (1427-1509), one leaf of East Village. Album leaf, ink and color
on paper, 28.6 x 33 cm. Nanjing Museum, Nanjing.
143
Figure D 85 Wen Zhengming, one leaf of Garden of the Inept Administrator depicting
the Small Flying Rainbow Bridge (xiao fei hong), dated 1551. Album leaf, ink on paper,
26.6 x 27.3 cm.
144
Figure D 86 Sun Kehong, detail of Stone Table Garden, dated 1572. Handscroll, ink and
color on paper, 12 3/4 x 272 1/2 inches. Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, San
Francisco.
145
Figure D 87 Sun Kehong, detail of Stone Table Garden, dated 1572. Handscroll, ink and
color on paper, 12 3/4 x 272 1/2 inches. Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, San
Francisco.
146
Figure D 88 Zhang Fu (1546-ca. 1631), one leaf from West Grove. Album leaf, ink and
color on paper, 35 x 25 cm. Wuxi Museum, Wuxi, China.
147
Figure D 89 Zhang Hong, Painting of Zhi Garden, 1627. Album leaf, ink and color on
paper, 32.39 x 34.29 cm. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles.
148
paper, 32.4 x 34.6 cm. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles.
149
paper, overall including mount: 38.7 x 43.8 cm. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los
Angeles.
150
Figure D 92 Li Gonglin, one section of Gathering at the West Garden, 1080. Handscroll,
ink on paper, 26.5 406cm. Unknown repository.
151
Figure D 93 Li Gonglin, detail of Gathering at the West Garden, 1080. Handscroll, ink
on paper, 26.5 406cm. Unknown repository.
152

dated 1347. Hanging scroll, ink on paper, 23.8cm x 99.4cm. The Cleveland Museum of
Art, Cleveland.
153
Figure D 95 Guo Xi (1001-1090), Early Spring, not dated. 158.3 x 108.1 cm, ink and
color on silk. National Palace Museum, Taipei.
154
Figure D 96 Wang Meng (1308-1385), Bamboo Cottage by Lake Tai/Retreat at Ju-qu,

not dated. 68.7x42.5 cm, ink and color on paper. National Palace Museum, Taipei.
155
Figure D 97 Wang Meng (1308-1385), The Simple Retreat, not dated. 136 x 45 cm, ink
and color on paper. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
156
Figure D 98 Guo Xi (1001-1090), Old Trees, Level Distance (Left section), not dated.
35.6 x 104.4 cm, ink and color on silk. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Figure D 99 Zhao Mengfu (1254-1322), Twin Pines, Level Distance, ca.1300. 26.8 x
107.5 cm, ink on paper. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
157
Figure D 100 Xia Gui, Sailboat in Rainstorm, about 1189-94. Ink and light color on silk,
23.9 x 25.1 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
158
Figure D 101 Ni Zan, Woods and Valleys of Mount Y, dated 1372, upper section. The
159
Figure D 102 Zhao Mengfu, left section of Autumn Colors on the Qiao and Hua
Mountains, 1295. Handscroll, ink and color on paper, 24.8 x 93.2 cm. National Palace
Museum, Taipei.
160
Figure D 103 Dong Yuan (attributed to, d. 962), Wintry Trees by a Lake, not dated.
Hanging scroll, ink and color on silk, 178 x 115.4 cm. Kurokawa Institute of Ancient
Cultures, Nishinomiya, Japan.
161
Figure D 104 Xia Gui (active ca. 1195-1230), Mountain Market, Clear with Rising Mist,
13th century. Album leaf, ink on silk, 24.8 x 21.3 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York.
162
Figure D 105 Ma Yuan (active ca. 1190-1225), Scholar Viewing a Waterfall, late 12th
century, early 13th century. Album leaf, ink and color on silk, 25.1 x 26 cm. The
163
Figure D 106 Yujian, Mountain Market, Clear with Rising Mist, late Southern Song and
early Yuan dynasty. Handscroll, ink on paper, 33.182.8cm. Idemitsu Museum of Arts,
Tokyo.
Figure D 107 Muqi (late 13th century), Wild Geese on a Sandbank, late Southern Song
and early Yuan dynasty. Handscroll, ink on paper, 33.0109.5cm. Idemitsu Museum of
Arts, Tokyo.
164
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Poetic Feeling in A Thatched Pavilion Attributed To The Chinese Y

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Poetic feeling in a thatched pavilion attributed to

Copyright 2013 Sicong Zhu

Follow this and additional works at: http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd

POETIC FEELING IN A THATCHED PAVILION ATTRIBUTED TO THE

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment

Thesis Supervisor: Associate Professor Robert Rorex

To my parents, Lihua Leng and Xiaogang Zhu

LIST OF GLOSSARY AND CHINESE TEXTS........ xvi

About the Handscroll.. 9

B. DOCUMENTED WU ZHEN STYLE...

C. AN INTRODUCTION TO CHINESE LANDSCAPE PAINTINGS.

Figure D 13 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), the character qing (emotion) in the

Figure D 94 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), detail of Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion,

LIST OF GLOSSARY AND CHINESE TEXTS

[The handscroll Hermit

Nigensha, 1980), Sungmii Lee Hans Wu Chen's

"Mo-chu pu" Literati Painter's Manual on In Bamboo (PhD diss., Princeton

sty World (1981), Marjorie L. Williams

CHAPTER I POETIC FEELING IN A THATCHED PAVILION

Inscription, Calligraphy and Sealing

Wai Kam Ho, http://www.clevelandart.org/collections/collection%20online.aspx?pid={91ADCD8F992A-45A5-8599-70835467DF5E}&coid=5701641&clabel=highlights. Accessed November 27, 2012.

o ntains, where the inscription of the artist lies in a matrix-like formation.

Inscriptions of artists of later generations are composed in a more self-expressive,

A rmaera is a novice Buddhist monk.

Yu Fengqing (17th century), Yu Fengqing Shu hua ti ba ji [Records of Inscriptions on Paintings

Translated by Wai-kam Ho. http://www.clevelandart.org/art/1963.259.

CHAPTER II POETIC FEELING IN A THATCHED PAVILION IN THE

CHAPTER III CONCLUSION

APPENDIX A A SHORT BIOGRAPHY OF WU ZHEN

APPENDIX B DOCUMENTED WU ZHEN STYLE

Mu is a traditional Chinese measuring unit. One mu is about 667 square meters.

Yu Fengqing (17th century), Yu Fengqing Shu hua ti ba ji [Records of Inscriptions on Paintings

Su Shi , Shu Yanling Wang Zhubu Suohua Zhezhi Ershou

Original Chinese: , . Zhen Wu , and Fen Qian (late 17th

APPENDIX C AN INTRODUCTION TO CHINESE LANDSCAPE

Northern and Southern School of Landscape

Wu Zhen as Orthodox Literati Painter

Figure D 2 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), inscription of Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion,

Figure D 3 Wu Zhen, Fishermans Idyll, 1342. Palace Museum, Taipei. Inscription.

Figure D 6 Wu Zhen, Central Mountain (or Mountain among Mountains), National

Figure D 14 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), the character he in the inscription of Poetic

Figure D 27 Wu Zhen (attributed to), inscription of Fisherman Recluse on Lake Dongting,

Figure D 32 Wang Meng (1308-1385), detail of Bamboo Cottage by Lake Tai/Retreat at

Figure D 37 Wen Zhengming, Garden of the Inept Administrator (Zhuozheng Yuan tu

Figure D 39 Wu Zhen, detail of fisherman in Fisherman (Lutan diaoting), ca. 1350.

Figure D 45 Wu Zhen (attributed to), Fishermen (Liu Zongyuan Zhuan Yufutujuan),

Figure D 49 Xiang Yuanbian (attributed), River Landscape, dated 1578. Metropolitan

Figure D 57 Wu Zhen (attributed to), Fishermen (Liu Zongyuan Zhuan Yufutujuan),

Figure D 63 Wu Zhen (1280-1354, ascribed to), detail of Mountain among Mountains,

Figure D 64 Wu Zhen (1280-1354, ascribed to), detail of Autumn Mountains. Hanging

Figure D 65 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), detail of Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion,

Figure D 66 Wu Zhen (1280-1354), detail of Spring Dawn on a Clear River, Hanging

Figure D 67 Wu Zhen (1280-1354), detail of Hermit Fisherman on an Autumn River, not

Figure D 94 Wu Zhen (ascribed to), detail of Poetic Feeling in a Thatched Pavilion,

Figure D 96 Wang Meng (1308-1385), Bamboo Cottage by Lake Tai/Retreat at Ju-qu,

ng li tai fa sh ch an chi. T ai-pei Kai y an, 1976-79.

an ynasties. Tokyo: Mayuyama, 1952.

[Studies on Yuan and Ming Painters]. Kyoto: Heian

jin sans isats . sa a Ha ubund ,

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