"Clarke Ming's Selected Running Cursive Scripts of Generations Running Cursive Scroll The Ode to the Virtue of Wine"

Author: Jiang Yin / Mo Xiaobu (editors)
Publisher: Xiling Press
Publication Date: 2006-01-01
Features: Dong Qichang (1555–1636), a Ming Dynasty painter and calligrapher. His courtesy name was Xuanzhai, and his sobriquets were Sibai and Xiangguang Jushi. He was from Huating (now Songjiang County, Shanghai). He held the position of Minister of Rites in Nanjing and was granted the title of Grand Guardian of the Heir Apparent in retirement. He excelled in landscape painting, learning from Dong Yuan, Ju Ran, Ni Zan, and others. He emphasized brushwork and ink charm, creating works with clear, bright, and elegant styles. In calligraphy, he initially studied Yan Zhenqing before later mastering the styles of the Jin, Tang, and Song dynasties. He was skilled in regular script, running script, and cursive script, with a natural and refined style. His theories on painting and calligraphy had a profound influence on later generations, and his works include Rongtai Collection, Rongtai Separate Collection, and from Huachen Studio. His paintings often began with imitating ancient masterpieces, carefully mimicking and integrating them to capture the essence of the old masters' brushwork and ink charm. He was adept at using ink, creating vibrant and layered effects with distinct gradations, revealing a natural and refined charm in his minimalist yet expressive works. This ink technique was also reflected in his colored landscape paintings. He also emphasized brushwork, often combining scraping, rubbing, dotting, and coloring to achieve rich variations in brushstrokes, emphasizing freedom from the constraints of subjects. His most influential and concentrated expression of artistic thought was the "North-South School Theory." He used the division of the Tang Dynasty Buddhist Chan sect into the Northern and Southern Schools to explain the development of painting from the Tang to the Ming dynasties over hundreds of years. He categorized landscape painting after the Tang Dynasty into Northern and Southern Schools based on creative methods and the status of painters, comparing literati painters who used ink wash techniques to the Southern School, while viewing professional painters who used blue-green outline-and-fill techniques as the Northern School. He proudly identified himself as a follower of the Southern School. Running Script Scroll, on paper, 31 cm in height, 479.5 cm in width, now housed in the Tokyo National Museum. It includes: Two Poems on the Arhat, Praise for the First Ancestor, Seeing a Monk Travel to Mount Wutai, and Seeing a Monk Go to Niushan Jizhou. Like Dong's elegant and peaceful calligraphic style, the first half of the scroll blends running script with cursive script, with a structured and precise brushwork, unhurried and natural in layout. Compared to Postscript to the Sutra of the Bodhisattva, it has more sharp turns, appearing more upright and robust. The second half is purely cursive script, with swift and fluid brushwork, as spontaneous as dragons, snakes, clouds, and mist. Yet, it remains balanced and composed, always maintaining a proper angle and retaining the subtlety of roundness. Ode to the Virtue of Wine, on silk, 24.5 cm in height, 245.7 cm in width. The calligraphy features strong and vigorous brushwork with ample spacing.