Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)

Style:

Tai Chin was regarded as founder of an important school of landscape, called Che School with a vigorous and unacademic manner. His leading follower was Wu Wei. The way he used the brushline is more rough and impulsive than Tai Chin’s, and the drawing, evidently done with a worn, stubby brush, is more carefree.

In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, a group of painters finally re-established the literati tradition as the leading force in Chinese painting. It was known as the Wu School. The dominant tone of their paintings, one of sanity and balance, was set by the founder of the school, Shen Chou.

The proliferation of separate stylistic currents or schools of painting in the late Ming dynasty is one of the many astonishing features of that fascinating period. At the same time, some of the most interesting figures of this period remained relatively isolated, more so than painters had tended to be since the Yuan dynasty, and are properly to be classified as individualists.

Artists:

Che School

Tai Chin

Wu Wei

Wu School

Shen Chou

Wen Cheng-ming

Lu Chih

Chen Shun