Dong Qichang
Dong Qichang was a prominent painter and calligrapher of the late Ming Dynasty, and the most influential art critic in late Imperial China. In various treatises, he disparaged realism, color, and other aspects of the tradition of Chinese academic painting, lauding the literati painting mode of monochrome ink painting. Dong Qichang's articulation of the definition of literati form, attitude, and aesthetics, as well as his criteria for judging the quality of art, and his selection of canonical great artists of the past (e.g. the Four Wangs, or the Four Masters of the Yuan Dynasty), remain dominant in Chinese art history today, both in China and throughout the world.
Originally from the Shanghai area, when taking the prefectural Chinese Imperial examinations for the first time at age 17, he finished second, behind his cousin who the judges claimed possessed superior calligraphy.[1]
References
- ↑ Benjamin Elman, A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China, University of California Press (2000), 136.
