Landscape after Kun Can, Wu Zheng

Exhibition Label:
“The Boundaries of Heaven: Chinese Ink Painting in the Republican Period, 1911-1949,” Feb-2009, Kris Ercums
The artistic career of Wu Zheng, also known as Wu Daiqiu 吴待秋, follows the turbulent years of the fledgling Republic of China. Born to a Shanghai commercial painter, in 1903 he moved to Hangzhou to study for the imperial bureaucratic exams. However, following the 1911 Xinhai Revolution which ended Qing dynastic rule and with it the imperial bureaucratic system, Wu began a career as professional ink painter. A prominent member of the Chinese art world, in the 1920s he helped create the Society to Preserve Chinese Calligraphy and Painting (Zhongguo shuhua baocunhui), a key organization in promoting ink painting as an art form of “National Essence” 国粹 (guocui). Then in 1947, together with two other prominent painters, Wu Hufan吴湖帆 (1894-1968) and Zhang Daqian张大千 (1899-1983), he led efforts to establish the first art museum in China, the Shanghai Municipal Art Museum. In 1949, shortly after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, he passed away from a brain hemorrhage. This work of gnarled pines and narrow valleys, painted in the manner Kun Can髡殘 (1612-ca 1674)—one of the Four Monk Painters of the Qing—demonstrates his classical training in Chinese painting. As with many poetic inscriptions, Wu creates an audile element that enlivens the painting, linking image and text.

The inscription reads:

An ancient temple leans toward rocky crags,
Yin and Yang unite together,
Where are the reed pipes being played?
The pine wind itself sighs in response.

Archive Label 2003:
Born in Zhejiang, Wu Zheng later moved to Shanghai where he received training in the orthodox style of the four Wang masters. This landscape faithfully follows that tradition with its emphasis on coherent construction of forms and meticulous layering of brushstrokes. The uniting of yin and yang in the poetic inscription refelcts the Chinese system of geomancy, suggesting that the mountain temple is located in an auspicious place. The mood that prevails is one of quiet serenity, disturbed only by the whispering of pines.