Yun Shouping

Timeline

1. 1633–1660Wujin · JiangsuOriginally named Ge, he later went by the courtesy name Shouping and changed it to Zhengshu, with the art name Nantian. The Yun clan of Wujin was a prominent local family; his father Yun Richu was a scholar of the late Ming. During the Ming-Qing transition the family suffered and was scattered, and he himself was caught up in the warfare. He ultimately never sat for the Qing civil service examinations to enter office, choosing instead to support himself through poetry, calligraphy, and painting. In his early landscapes he followed the Yuan master Wang Meng, with lucid brushwork.
2. 1661–1675Changzhou · JiangsuIn the early Kangxi reign he formed a friendship with Wang Hui and collaborated with him on several occasions. Judging that his landscapes could not rival Wang Hui's, he turned to flower-and-bird painting, tracing back to the boneless technique of Xu Chongsi of the Northern Song and drawing on Ming painters' from-life studies, applying color directly in dabs with little outlining, thus creating the 'boneless flower' style. During this period he still painted landscapes as well, with a spare and untrammeled mood, establishing the technical foundation for the later Changzhou school.
3. 1676–1690Baiyun Creek, Wujin · JiangsuIn his later years his boneless flower paintings made him famous throughout Jiangnan, with the contemporary saying 'every household has a Nantian, every family a Zhengshu'; his followers formed the Changzhou school. Together with Wang Shimin, Wang Jian, Wang Hui, Wang Yuanqi, and Wu Li he was known as the 'Four Wangs, Wu, and Yun' (Six Masters of the Qing). His poetry, calligraphy, and painting were together called 'Nantian's Three Perfections,' and he left the Collected Works of the Ouxiang Studio and Colophons on Nantian's Paintings. He died in his hometown in 1690.