Portrait: AI-generated imagined likeness
Painter · Writer · Poet · Politician
Painter, calligrapher, and theorist of Ming Dynasty China. He organized literati paintings into the theory of northern and southern sects, and had a great influence on later views of Chinese painting. He is a person who thinks about East Asian art history.
View in catalogJiangnan
Work
Theory of Southern and Northern schools
Theory
Late Ming literati painting
1600–1636
Cultural event · Participant
Map: Natural Earth (PD)
He grew up in the samurai culture of Gangnam and was also active as a civil servant. In China at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the development of commercial cities and the spread of literary tastes supported artistic culture.
He advocated a theory that divided paintings into southern paintings that emphasized spirituality and northern paintings that focused on craftsmanship. Through the appreciation, collection, and copying of calligraphy and paintings, he showed how writers inherit the masterpieces of the past.
Dong Qichang's theories had a strong influence on later generations of painters, but at the same time they also tended to overly hierarchical painting. This can be read as an example of how the classification of art history itself creates authority.
When we study Dong Qichang, we learn that in East Asian art, literary figures not only painted pictures, but also played a role in creating standards of appreciation and historical views. He is an important figure in understanding Ming and Qing paintings, and can also serve as a teaching material for understanding the formation of authority in literati culture.
