Collection: Ming-Qing Painting
Ming and Qing Painting covers Chinese pictorial production under the last two imperial dynasties, from 1368 to 1644 and from 1644 to 1912. The Ming saw the consolidation of the literati landscape tradition through the Wu School in Suzhou around Shen Zhou (1427–1509), Wen Zhengming (1470–1559), Tang Yin (1470–1524), and Qiu Ying (c. 1494–1552), the four collectively known as the Four Masters of the Ming. The professional Zhe School around Dai Jin (1388–1462) and Wu Wei (1459–1508) offered an alternative academic idiom drawing on Southern Song models. Late Ming theory was set by Dong Qichang (1555–1636) of the Songjiang School, whose distinction between Northern and Southern Schools shaped subsequent reception.
The early Qing produced the Orthodox Six Masters, principally the Four Wangs, Wang Shimin (1592–1680), Wang Jian (1598–1677), Wang Hui (1632–1717), and Wang Yuanqi (1642–1715), with Wu Li and Yun Shouping. The Individualist painters of the same period, Bada Shanren (1626–1705), Shitao (1642–1707), Gong Xian, and the Anhui School monk painters, broke from the Orthodox programme into more eccentric registers. The Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou in the eighteenth century, including Zheng Xie, Jin Nong, and Hua Yan, continued the Individualist line, and the late nineteenth century Shanghai School around Ren Bonian and Wu Changshuo opened the tradition toward popular subjects and modern markets.
