Qiu Ying (; 1494 – 1552)Cihai page 211. was a Chinese painter of the

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...

who specialised in the ''

gongbi ''Gongbi'' () is a careful realist technique in Chinese painting, the opposite of the interpretive and freely expressive '' xieyi'' (寫意 'sketching thoughts') style. The name is from the Chinese ''gong jin'' meaning 'tidy' (meticulous brush c ...

'' brush technique.

Early life

Qiu Ying's

courtesy name A courtesy name (), also known as a style name, is a name bestowed upon one at adulthood in addition to one's given name. This practice is a tradition in the East Asian cultural sphere, including China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.Ulrich Theo ...

was Shifu (), and his

art name An art name (pseudonym or pen name), also known by its native names ''hào'' (in Mandarin), ''gō'' (in Japanese), ''ho'' (in Korean), and ''tên hiệu'' (in Vietnamese), is a professional name used by East Asian artists, poets and writers. The ...

was Shizhou (). He was born to a peasant family in

Taicang Taicang is a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Suzhou, Jiangsu province, China. The city located in the south of the Yangtze River estuary opposite Nantong, being bordered by Shanghai proper to the south, while the river also deli ...

. Moving with his family to

Suzhou Suzhou (; ; Suzhounese: ''sou¹ tseu¹'' , Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Soochow, is a major city in southern Jiangsu province, East China. Suzhou is the largest city in Jiangsu, and a major economic center and focal point of trad ...

(蘇州), Qiu Ying was apprenticed as a lacquer artisan. Despite his family's humble origins, he had natural talent and skill in painting. He later learned the art of painting from the famous artist Zhou Chen (周臣, ca. 1450–1535) and imitated ancient works of

Tang Tang or TANG most often refers to: * Tang dynasty * Tang (drink mix) Tang or TANG may also refer to: Chinese states and dynasties * Jin (Chinese state) (11th century – 376 BC), a state during the Spring and Autumn period, called Tang (唐) ...

(618-907) and

Song A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetiti ...

(960-1279) dynasties, becoming so successful that his copies and the originals were indistinguishable.

Career

The Emperor Guangwu Fording a River by Qiu Ying

He painted with the support a few of wealthy patrons. Three of his best patrons were art collectors. One was Chen Guan (?–after 1557), from

. The other two were both younger than Qiu: Zhou Fenglai (1523–1555), from nearby

Kunshan Kunshan is a county-level city in southeastern Jiangsu province with Shanghai bordering its eastern border and Suzhou on its western boundary. It is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Suzhou. Name There is a stron ...

, and the well-known wealthy collector Xiang Yuanbian (1525–1590), whose home was in

Jiaxing Jiaxing (), alternately romanized as Kashing, is a prefecture-level city in northern Zhejiang province, China. Lying on the Grand Canal of China, Jiaxing borders Hangzhou to the southwest, Huzhou to the west, Shanghai to the northeast, and the p ...

Zhejiang Province Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jiang ...

. With his special gift for copying paintings, Qiu Ying found favour among collectors, bringing him an opportunity to copy and learn from Song and Yuan dynasty paintings in the collections of the Jiangnan area and greatly broadening his artistic scope. As Qiu Ying's skills in painting matured, a style of his own gradually emerged and took form. Though Suzhou's

Wu School Wu or Wumen School () is a group of painters of the Southern School during the Ming period of Chinese history. It was not an academy or educational institution, but rather a group united largely by the artistic theories of its members. Often clas ...

encouraged painting in ink washes, Qiu Ying also painted in the blue-and-green style and incorporated different techniques into his paintings. His paintings on figure, landscape, and flower subjects all therefore have an originality of his own. Qiu Ying's use of the brush was meticulous and elegant, and his depictions of landscapes and figures were orderly and well-proportioned. In addition to his paintings being elegant and refined, they also are quite decorative. Qiu Ying's painting style it also has the delicately graceful air of literati art as well. His talent and versatility allowed him to become regarded as one of the

Four Masters of the Ming dynasty The Four Masters of the Ming dynasty () are a traditional grouping in Chinese art history of four famous Chinese painters that lived during the Ming dynasty. The group consists of Shen Zhou (1427–1509), Wen Zhengming (1470–1559), Tang Yin (1 ...

. Furthermore, accompanying the great economic expansion that took place in the middle of the Ming dynasty, Qiu Ying's paintings were imitated in large numbers during his own lifetime to meet the demand for his art, his name added to untold numbers of works done by professional artists. The most famous really painted by Qiu Ying are ''Harp player in a pavilion'' (now at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston) and '' The Emperor Guangwu Fording a River'' (

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (french: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the ...

) and the frequently reproduced ''Dwellings of the Immortals - Jade Cave FairyLand'' are located in

The Palace Museum The Palace Museum () is a huge national museum complex housed in the Forbidden City at the core of Beijing, China. With , the museum inherited the imperial royal palaces from the Ming and Qing dynasties of China and opened to the public in 19 ...

Forbidden City The Forbidden City () is a palace complex in Dongcheng District, Beijing, China, at the center of the Imperial City of Beijing. It is surrounded by numerous opulent imperial gardens and temples including the Zhongshan Park, the sacrifi ...

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the Capital city, capital of the China, People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's Li ...

in China. And for example the popular ''Journey to Shu'' (also known as ''Emperor Minghuang's Journey to Sichuan'') "flagship" painting in the blue-and-green style ( Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art in Washington D.C.) is a copy of a landscape painted by Qiu Ying, which in turn was a copy of several hundred years older famous landscape of the same title, which was also a copy... (See the painting gallery
Emperor Ming-huang's Flight to Sichuan
.

Personal life

His daughter,

Qiu Zhu Qiu Zhu (; ), commonly known as Miss Qiu and by her art name Duling Neishi (), was a Chinese painter during the Ming dynasty, noted for paintings with figures (rather than landscapes), including several depictions of the goddess Guanyin. Li ...

(仇珠, fl. 16th c.), and son-in-law, You Qiu (尤求, fl. 16th c.), followed him in painting. Qiu Zhu's style is delicate and beautifully refined, while You Qiu also inherited his father-in-law's manner but especially excelled at “baimiao (白描)” fine-line figure painting in ink.

Collections

Work attributed to Qiu Ying is held in the permanent collections of several museums worldwide, including the

Princeton University Art Museum The Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM) is the Princeton University gallery of art, located in Princeton, New Jersey. With a collecting history that began in 1755, the museum was formally established in 1882, and now houses over 113,000 works ...

, the

Indianapolis Museum of Art The Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) is an encyclopedic art museum located at Newfields, a campus that also houses Lilly House, The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park: 100 Acres, the Gardens at Newfields, the Beer Garden, and more. It ...

, the

University of Michigan Museum of Art The University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor, Michigan with is one of the largest university art museums in the United States. Built as a war memorial in 1909 for the university's fallen alumni from the Civil War, Alumni Memorial Hall ori ...

, the

Penn Museum The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology—commonly known as the Penn Museum—is an archaeology and anthropology museum at the University of Pennsylvania. It is located on Penn's campus in the University City neigh ...

, the

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

, the

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is an art museum in Kansas City, Missouri, known for its encyclopedic collection of art from nearly every continent and culture, and especially for its extensive collection of Asian art. In 2007, ''Time'' magaz ...

, and the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

Gallery

File:Ch'iu Ying 001.jpg, ''Spring morning in the Han Palace'' File:Journey to Shu; Long.jpg, ''Emperor Minghuang's Journey to Sichuan'' File:Qui ying scan.jpg, Scroll illustrating The '' Heart Sutra'', 1543 File:Pavilions in the Mountains of the Immortals by Qiu Ying.jpg, ''Pavilions in the Mountains of the Immortals'' File:Ming-Beamtenprüfungen1.jpg, ''The

Imperial examinations The imperial examination (; lit. "subject recommendation") refers to a civil-service examination system in Imperial China, administered for the purpose of selecting candidates for the state bureaucracy. The concept of choosing bureaucrats by ...

'', 1540 File:'Landscape with Scholar in Pavilion' by Qiu Ying, c. 1530-40, Honolulu Museum of Art, 3178.1 .JPG, ''Landscape with Scholar in Pavilion'' File:明傳仇英十六羅漢圖卷-The Sixteen Luohans MET DP205344.jpg, ''The Sixteen Luohans'' File:孔子聖蹟圖.png, ''Portrait of

Confucius Confucius ( ; zh, s=, p=Kǒng Fūzǐ, "Master Kǒng"; or commonly zh, s=, p=Kǒngzǐ, labels=no; – ) was a Chinese philosopher and politician of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. C ...

Notes

References

* Ci hai bian ji wei yuan hui (). Ci hai (). Shanghai: Shanghai ci shu chu ban she (), 1979. Ming dynasty painters 1494 births 1552 deaths Painters from Suzhou People from Taicang {{China-painter-stub