Research Zhengming Painting Connoisseur Activities

This paper presents a case study of connoisseurship and collection history of Chinese painting and calligraphy, and the selected research object is Wen Zhengming, a leader of Wu School of Painting in the Ming Dynasty. Combining history and philology methods together, this paper seeks to restore the connoisseurship and collection activities of Wen Zhengming’s painting and calligraphy as much as possible, including the connoisseurship and collection affairs he has participated in and theconnoisseurship and collection behaviors he has led. Through the interpretation of these connoisseurship and collection affairs, the author understands the methods, concepts and interests of Wen Zhengming’s connoisseurship and collection. Putting them in the whole category of connoisseurship and collection history, the author also discusses the characteristics and significance of Wen’s connoisseurship and collection activities. Based on these, the author has a glimpse of the generalities of the painting and calligraphy connoisseurship and collection in Suzhou and Jiangnan region in the Mid‐Ming Dynasty.Wen Zhengming is a highly respected master in the history of Chinese painting, as well as a great and renowned calligrapher, poet and scholar in the Ming Dynasty. In the meantime, Wen is also a famous connoisseur in theconnoisseurship and collection history. His appreciation level was not only recognized by the collectors in the same period, but also widely praised by later generations of collectors. Although Wen did not author any collection records in his lifetime, he left behind a lot of paintings, calligraphy inscriptions and poems on paintings, as well as a sea of poetry, records, brief biographical sketches of deceased persons and epitaphs for exchanges with scholars and collectors in the same period. Through the carding and interpretation of these materials, the connoisseurship and collection activities in that era can be partly presented. The reason why Wen became an extraordinary painting and calligraphy connoisseur was historically inevitable. He was born in the Suzhou region in the Ming Dynasty where the connoisseurship and collection atmosphere prevailed. His teachers Shen Zhou, Wu Kuan and Li Yingzhen, his elders Wang Ao and Shi Jian, his friends Du Mu, Tang Yin and Zhu Yunming were all renowned connoisseurs. In the process of his growth, Wen Zhengming was constantly influenced by what he saw and heard from painting and calligraphy connoisseurship and collection, which was not only a necessity for him to study painting and calligraphy creation, but also gradually became his hobby, learning and a way of life. After Wen took over the mantle of Shen Zhou and became the leader of Wu School of Painting, he became more and more interested in painting and calligraphy connoisseurship and collection and frequently interacted with many connoisseurs at that time, such as Hua Yun, Hua Xia, He Liangjun and Xian Yuanbian, exerting his influence.In the connoisseurship and collection history of ancient Chinese painting and calligraphy, the scholars who could be called as connoisseurs were in great numbers. In terms of their identities, they were not only connoisseurs, but also rulers, literati scholars, painters, art historians or even merchants. Painting and calligraphy connoisseurs and collectors like Wen were also literati scholars and painters, and Su Shi, Mi Fu and Zhao Mengfu all belonged to this category while Wen was a representative one. Wen’s connoisseurship and collection activities showed his literary side, namely, valuing appreciation rather than occupancy, and paying attention to the spiritual delight brought by painting and calligraphyconnoisseurship and collection activities rather than showing‐off of material wealth. In his late times, Wen put forward the view of "true appreciation", which specified the significance of painting and calligraphyconnoisseurship and collection. According to the studies of Wen’s painting and calligraphyconnoisseurship and collection activities, we can not only summarize the painting and calligraphyconnoisseurship and collection characteristics and concepts of connoisseurs with the identities of literati scholars and painters, but also regard Wen as one of the most representative literati collectors in Suzhou in the Ming Dynasty to learn about the features of the times. The above contents are the contributions made by the author to the whole studies of painting and calligraphy connoisseurship and collection history through the case study of Wen’s painting and calligraphy connoisseurship and collection activities.