A Look At The Calligraphy And Painting Market In The Middle And Late Ming Dynasty From The Perspective Of Forger

The great changes of economic mode in Ming Dynasty made the traditional smallscale peasant economic system suffered a strong impact,and commodity economy became prosperous and developed day by day.Many large cities with dense population and prosperous commerce were formed in Jiangnan area.Under this social background,people’s economic concepts were generally enhanced.In the middle and late Ming Dynasty,a bad atmosphere of pursuing money and wealth and advocating consumption gradually formed in the society.People began to seek deep spiritual enjoyment on the basis of meeting the basic material needs of life,and all classes spontaneously participated in painting and calligraphy collection activities.At the same time,the traditional values of literati,calligraphers and painters were changed,and they abandoned their previous thoughts of valuing righteousness over profit.They actively participated in the trading of paintings and calligraphy and sold them for shame.The trading and collecting of paintings and calligraphy became a common trend in the middle and late Ming Dynasty.In addition,the increasing number of middlemen in the painting and calligraphy trade and the convenient waterway transportation accelerated the circulation of commodities throughout the country,providing conditions for the prosperity of the painting and calligraphy market in the middle and late Ming Dynasty.The trading activities of painting and calligraphy were very active in this period,and the trading scale was huge and far ahead of generations.While the trade and collection of painting and calligraphy are flourishing,the problem of painting and calligraphy counterfeiting is becoming more and more serious.With the increasing popularity of calligraphy and painting collection in Ming Dynasty,the general public’s demand for calligraphy and painting collection is also increasing.Although famous paintings and calligraphy are constantly circulated to consumers in the hands of painting and calligraphy merchants,the total amount of famous paintings and calligraphy is basically fixed,and sometimes it even decreases year by year due to loss,damage and other reasons.As a result,there will be an imbalance between the growing demand for calligraphy and painting collection and the supply of authentic paintings and calligraphy,which does not change much.With the increasingly active activities of calligraphy and painting collection and the aggravation of the imbalance between supply and demand,fake paintings and calligraphy have gained more opportunities to survive in the calligraphy and painting market.A large number of fake paintings and calligraphy have emerged,flooding the calligraphy and painting market,causing chaos in the calligraphy and painting collection circle.After the spread of the wind of painting and calligraphy forgery,the wind of painting and calligraphy selling and checking forgery also emerged one after another.After the spread of fake painting and calligraphy,the phenomenon of selling fake painting and calligraphy and identifying fake painting also appeared one after another.The appearance of these phenomena became the most peculiar part of the trading and collection of painting and calligraphy in the middle and late Ming Dynasty.The most important factor of the problem of painting and calligraphy forgery in the middle and late Ming Dynasty is the drive of interests.Those seeking money join the painting and calligraphy market and cater to the needs of the market by speculating in forgery.Finally,there are few authentic paintings in the market.This paper starts from the problem of painting and calligraphy forgery in the middle and late Ming Dynasty,takes Wen Zhengming,Dong Qichang and other famous literati,painters and collectors as examples,and investigates the flourishing situation of painting and calligraphy market at that time and the problem of painting and calligraphy forgery.At the same time,starting from the relationship between the painting and calligraphy market and the painting and calligraphy forgery,the influence of the painting and calligraphy forgery problem on the Ming Dynasty painting and calligraphy market as a perspective to explore the characteristics of the painting and calligraphy market in the middle and late Ming Dynasty.Finally,taking history as a mirror and thinking about the high tide of painting and calligraphy falsification in the middle and late Ming Dynasty,this paper puts forward some countermeasures to solve the problem of painting and calligraphy falsification still existing in today’s painting and calligraphy market.