Wang Shishen

Wang Shishen

Wang Shishen (1686-1759) was a famous painter and calligrapher in Qing Dynasty. The Han nationality is from Xiuning, Anhui Province, and lives in Yangzhou.

Li division of work, good at painting plum, full spirit, clear air, ink light fun foot. When he was blind in his old age, he was still able to do calligraphy and painting for people. He engraved a seal on his own and said, "I still want to see plum blossoms with one eye." later, his eyes were blind, but he still wrote the word "Xin Guan". There is a collection of Chaolin.

Together with Luo pin, Li Fangying, Li Ying, Jin Nong, Huang Shen, Gao Xiang and Zheng Xie, they are called "eight monsters of Yangzhou".

Main achievements

Wang Shishen's poems and eight part book are unique in painting Narcissus and plum blossom. Jinnong said that the beauty of plum painting was similar to that of Gaoxi Tang Dynasty.

Shi Shen painted numerous branches, thousands of flowers and thousands of pistils, leading cold fragrance, just like Baqiao in the wind and snow. In the Western Tang Dynasty, there are half open cicada flowers on the sparse branches, and a little red on the jade tower. The fine paper is fine, and each of them reaches its micro level.

Scholars are afraid of their old age and have a blind eye. They can draw plum blossoms or write eight parts of a book, which is better than before.

Fine seal cutting is as famous as Zhang Qianyi and Jinjin.

He is the author of Chaolin poetry collection. "Biography of Guangyin people, knowledge of Chinese painting, continuation of Chinese painting symbols, Yangzhou Huafang records, Mo Linjin dialect, Tongyin's discussion on painting, oubolaoshi's calligraphy and painting.".

Life of the characters

Wang Shishen sold paintings for a living. He is good at painting flowers, and he can pick up points at will. He is especially good at painting plum. He often goes to meihualing outside Yangzhou city to appreciate and write plum. His representative works include the painting of Xiaoxiang Lingfang, the opening of green calyx plum, the shadow of fragrant plum, the painting of moon wearing wind, the painting of Linggen leaving Valley, the painting of Cangsong Yanjian, etc.

When he was 54 years old, he was blind in his left eye and could still draw plum. When he was 67 years old, he was blind in both eyes, but he could still write big words in wild grass. He paid for "mental outlook", which means "blind in the eyes, not blind in the heart". Wang Shishen is good at poetry, and is the author of Chaolin poetry collection. He is good at poetry, calligraphy, painting and seal cutting. The seal takes the method of small seal and joins the Han seal. It uses the painting to seal. There are different meanings in the method, such as "Chaolin" seal and "Qifeng Caotang" seal.

Wang Shishen's seal cutting mostly adopts small seal, such as "Wang Shishen" seal, which gives people a sense of boundless simplicity. The combination of large pieces of "Shen" in the Chinese character brings complicated colors to the seal, which makes people appreciate the true meaning of art in the hazy beauty. In addition to the two horizontal strokes with the word "Shi" in bold, several large white blocks are formed on the printing surface, which are separated from each other and echo with each other. Correspondingly, large color blocks appear on the red bottom, and the interest of "counting white as black" overflows on the printing surface. The strong contrast of white and red and the mutual reference of sparse and dense make the seal reach the state of "sparse can run horse, dense can't needle". In Wang Shishen's seal cutting, the structure of his characters often broke the rules and became his own family; the arrangement of his composition often sought changes in a stable way, with a good charm and a strong reputation for a time.

Bai Wenyin is a facsimile of Wang Shishen's life experience. In 1739, when he returned from his second trip to Zhejiang, he became blind in his left eye! For this reason, he once engraved "Zuo blind student", "still keep a look at the flower tip", "old man in late spring", "busy life for the flower" and other leisure chapters to express his feelings.

At the age of 67, Wang Shishen was blind, which added to the pain. With a healthy attitude, he overcame his disability and began to explore writing wild grass. Wang Shishen thought that the spirit of artistic dedication to engage in creation, showed strong perseverance, which can be a model for future generations. After he lost his sight in his left eye, there was a poem that "I can't help painting, I can't help fighting Xiaoming". The seal of "shangliuyimu zhuhuashao" has the characteristics of neat and dense Han seal. The seal technique is stable and natural, and it can not be increased or decreased at will. In terms of composition, the words "Shang" and "Zhi" are smaller, with one end at the beginning and one end at the end. There are many horizontal strokes in the printed text. When Wang Shishen dealt with the printing surface, he arranged the right line of characters and strokes clearly, started and ended clearly with a knife, and the lines were full of changes. He processed the left line into a hazy shape, so that the two lines were clear, hazy, neat and hazy, which increased the interest of the printing. This kind of arrangement is easy to cause the seal's horizontal momentum, creating a kind of overwhelming momentum like a thousand li array of clouds. The lower part of "Yi", "Shi" and "Hua" has two conditions: one is the natural space reserved, the other is the structural space shown by the tight and loose structure. They are the exterior and interior of each other, from the big seal to the small seal, to build a perfect seal form.

In the autumn of 1754, Wang Shishen bought a "Peng Chuang" cottage on the north side of Yangzhou City as a place for the aged. In this hut, he lived in peace, eating and clothing, drinking tea, reading, writing and painting. When he was 67 years old, his other eye gradually lost its light. He lived deep in the back lane of Pengmen. He didn't have many friends. He couldn't write or paint without his eyes. There were fewer people coming and going. Except for "three or four simple hearts, the times were too obedient", he was very cold in front of the door. Wang Shishen can stand loneliness and the life of "Pengsheng's three paths are poor year by year", but blindness deprives him of his life like calligraphy and painting creation, which is unbearable after all. Wang Shishen was "simple, not ostentatious, and thrifty", and he was lonely and poor in his later years. In 1759, Wang Shishen died in his hut in the corner of the city. The old man, like a plum blossom, has gone away like a wisp of fragrance.

The mystery of experience

The mystery of the first half of life

Wang Shishen is also good at writing poems. He likes to play the piano, especially when his eyes have chronic diseases and will become disabled. Wang Shishen combined tea loving, plum loving and poetry together to form a simple and elegant style of calligraphy and painting. Therefore, there are more than 20 poems about tea in Chaolin poems. "Tea bitter" and Qing, "Mei Qing" is high, friend Jinnong sent him "tea Fairy" nickname.

In 1686, Wang Shishen was born in Fuxi Township, Xiuning County, Anhui Province, which is a famous tea producing place. The life and study of Wang Shishen in his hometown in his early years are still a mystery, and the world knows little about it. He left Huizhou for Yangzhou in 1723, when he was 37 years old.

It is said that Wang Shishen is usually very quiet. When he interacts with people, he never mentions his past or his hometown. According to common sense analysis, Wang Shishen must have something hard to say about his experience in his hometown. People can't tell what the reason is. In the works left by Wang Shishen, we may find traces of the first half of his life.

The first is Wang Shishen's paintings. Many calligraphers and painters leave their native places in the signature of their works. This is to win honor for my hometown, or just to be used to it, but at least it can let the audience know where the author is from. In his paintings, Wang Shishen often wrote "the Wang family of Fuxi" and sometimes "the history of Xidong". As a result, people had to look for Wang Shishen's residence in the east of Fuxi in Xiuning.

Secondly, from the "nickname" Wang Shishen used many times in his life, later generations can know that he may rank sixth at home, and people call him "Wang Liu" or "Mr. Wang Liu".

The third is Wang Shishen's poems. Wang Shishen left a collection of poems, which is called Chaolin collection. In this collection of poems, there are two poems which clearly reveal his life experience

Recall the past with young, embrace more generous.

Acceptance, loyalty and sadness.

From this poem, it seems that we can not see that the young man of that year is now a silent man. Of course, it naturally reminds us that this ambitious, generous and smiling young man may have suffered setbacks and frustrations in his later life, and gradually became like a puppet.

Another poem is:

It's no longer the case that you want to become an old man.

Send a message, old friends should pity me, I pity no place to Chunhui.

What's the matter with being in the "old scholar" but having no home? Is it a conflict with the people in the same village? Is it the rest of the family that won't let him? However, although he has left his "Hometown", he still hopes that "old friends" can sympathize with him and understand him: he is in the mood of repaying his parents' kindness, but he can't because he is in a foreign land! This poem, how many people can read Wang Shishen left home helpless It's a hopeless situation.

In these works left by Wang Shishen, people can't find the relationship between his writing poetry, painting, practicing calligraphy and engraving. It seems that he is a strange talent without any teacher.

Selling paintings to buy a new house

At the age of 37, Wang Shishen came to Yangzhou with his family and went to the hometown Ma yueguan and Ma Yuelu brothers. Ma brothers are from Qimen, Huizhou. They have been engaged in salt industry in Yangzhou. At that time, they were famous in Yangzhou. Ma brothers have the typical character of "being a good scholar". They are especially willing to make friends with intellectuals and are very generous to them. As long as they have good words, good paintings and good books, they may become good friends. The series of xiaolinglong mountain Museum books they carved are very famous. Many of the rare books that are on the verge of disappearing were purchased by his brothers at high prices. Then they hired first-class engravers to carve for them, which played a very good role in the inheritance of literature.

The arrival of Wang Shishen, a native and painter, was well received by the Ma brothers. Ma brothers arranged him in their "seven peaks Pavilion". This pavilion turned out to be a "salon" where the Ma brothers received literati at home. After Wang Shishen came, Ma brothers asked someone to make the pavilion into a house and let Wang Shishen's family live here. As the pavilion is surrounded by seven huge stones, like seven peaks, Wang Shishen named the new residence "Qifeng thatched cottage" and named himself "Qifeng Jushi".

An important external reason for Wang Shishen's coming to Yangzhou was that Yangzhou was a famous prosperous city in Jiangnan at that time

Chinese PinYin : Wang Shi Shen