Shen Zhou’s Landscape Painting In The Dong Ju Tradition

In Chinese art history,"Dong and Ju" are regarded as most important ancestors of the literati landscape painting.The original works of Dongyuan and Juran("Dong and Ju"),gradually were lost through the vagaries of time,and became extremly rare,and blured.During the Ming dynasty,Shenzhou was one of the most important painter that followed "Dong and Ju"’s tradition.Shen’s family,teachers and friends also follower of this lineage,allowed him to see a large number of genuine "Dong and Ju"’s original and related landscapes in their collection,as well as their thoughts,teachings and own paintings wich deeply influenced Shen’s ideas and works.Shen Zhou’s life study of "Dong and Ju"’s brush and ink techniques made him play a major role in this Lineage during the Ming Dynasty:from In the Manner of Dongju Landscape wich he demonstrates the "Dong and ju" Ink technique to Mingdu,or The Lu Mountain After Autumn Rain’s Juran Ink expression,to The Retreat in Cangzhou where combining "Dong and ju" and The Four Masters of the Yuan Dynasty in one scroll,he shows how he assimilates,understands and expresses"Dong and Ju"’s ideas and techniques in his own paintings at different periods during his life.Native of Suzhou,Shenzhou’s peculiar landscape experience and sensibility,in adition to his continuous "Dong and Ju"’s brush and ink study and his openness to other painters enable him to combine different traditions to "Dong and Ju",wich created a singular painting style and work such as:A Shelter for a Rainy Night,Xi Mountain Night Glow,Xi Mountain and Rain,Mind Traveling Book,Follows Interest Book,and so on,among them,the rain,the sunset and other peculiar southern landscape expressions are ingenious.and the gardens that Shen depicts,are landscapes from his real life experience,they are diaries in paintings that are unique and are Shen’s own "Dong and Ju" continuity and personal expresson.I hope to start this dessertation from Shenzhou’s specific landscape works,in order to better understand the inheritance of "Dong and Ju"’s pecularity in his landscape paintings.