Gu Kaizhi (; c. 344–406),

courtesy name A courtesy name ( zh, s=字, p=zì, l=character), also known as a style name, is an additional name bestowed upon individuals at adulthood, complementing their given name. This tradition is prevalent in the East Asian cultural sphere, particula ...

Changkang (), was a Chinese painter and politician during the Eastern Jin dynasty (317–420). He was a celebrated painter of ancient China.Cihai: Page 1846. He was born in

Wuxi Wuxi ( zh, s=无锡, p=Wúxī, ) is a city in southern Jiangsu, China. As of the 2024 census, it had a population of 7,495,000. The city lies in the southern Yangtze delta and borders Lake Tai. Notable landmarks include Lihu Park, the Mt. Lings ...

and first painted at

Nanjing Nanjing or Nanking is the capital of Jiangsu, a province in East China. The city, which is located in the southwestern corner of the province, has 11 districts, an administrative area of , and a population of 9,423,400. Situated in the Yang ...

in 364. In 366, he became an officer (Da Sima Canjun or Assistant to the Minister of Defense, 大司馬參軍). Later he was promoted to royal officer (Sanji Changshi or Gentleman in Waiting to the Emperor, 散騎常侍). He was also a talented poet and calligrapher. He wrote three books about painting theory: ''On Painting'' (), ''Introduction of Famous Paintings of Wei and Jin Dynasties'' () and ''Painting Yuntai Mountain'' (). He wrote: "In figure paintings the clothes and the appearances were not very important. The eyes were the spirit and the decisive factor."Cihai: Page 1846. Gu's art is known today through copies of several silk handscroll paintings attributed to him.

Biography

Gu Kaizhi was born in

(in modern

Jiangsu Jiangsu is a coastal Provinces of the People's Republic of China, province in East China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its capital in Nanjing. Jiangsu is the List of Chinese administra ...

) where his father served in the imperial secretariat as an assistant. At about nineteen he was employed as aide to the Grand Marshal Huan Wen. He held a succession of minor official posts under various leaders of the Eastern Jin court. One emperor under whom Gu Kaizhi served was Huan Xuan. An enthusiastic art collector, ahead of his accession Huan Xuan ordered a big boat to store paintings and other treasures so that they could be easily transported to safety in case of war. Gu Kaizhi entrusted to the emperor a sealed chest with his most precious works. The emperor broke open the box, stole the paintings, then repaired and returned it to the artist with the seals intact. Upon discovering his loss, Gu Kaizhi said that "the marvelous works partook of divine power, transformed themselves and vanished, like men ascending to join the immortals."

Works

''The Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies'' (女史箴圖)

This painting, dated between the 6th and 8th century AD—probably an early

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

copy—illustrates nine stories from a political satire about Empress Jia Nanfeng written by Zhang Hua (ca. 232–302). Beginning in the eighth century, many collectors and emperors left seals, poems, and comments on the scroll. The ''Admonitions'' scroll was stored in the emperor's treasure until it was looted by the British army in the Boxer Uprising in 1900.Cihai: Page 1846. Now it is in the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

collection, missing the first three scenes. There is another surviving copy of this painting, made during the

Song dynasty The Song dynasty ( ) was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Fiv ...

and is now held in the Palace Museum in Beijing. The Song version is complete in twelve scenes. The painting is on silk and is a polychrome. "The figures, whose countenances are at once solemn and tranquil, are described with a thin, unmodulated brush-line.... The brush-mode...has been described as 'spring silkworms spitting silk'".

''Nymph of the Luo River'' (洛神賦)

''Nymph of the Luo River'' is a painting by Gu which illustrates a poem written by

Cao Zhi Cao Zhi (; ; 192 – 27 December 232), courtesy name Zijian (), posthumously known as Prince Si of Chen (陈思王), was a prince of the state of Cao Wei in the Three Kingdoms period of China, and an accomplished poet in his time. His style o ...

(192–232). It survives in five copies dating to the Song and Ming dynasties. One copy is now held in the Palace Museum in Beijing, one copy in the National Palace Museum in Taipei and another one is now at the Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C. The third was brought to Manchuria by the last emperor

Puyi Puyi (7 February 190617 October 1967) was the final emperor of China, reigning as the eleventh monarch of the Qing dynasty from 1908 to 1912. When the Guangxu Emperor died without an heir, Empress Dowager Cixi picked his nephew Puyi, aged tw ...

(1906–1967) while he was the puppet emperor of

Manchukuo Manchukuo, officially known as the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of Great Manchuria thereafter, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China that existed from 1932 until its dissolution in 1945. It was ostens ...

under Japanese rule. When the Japanese surrendered in 1945 the painting disappeared. After ten years the Liaoning Province Museum recovered it. The fifth copy was bought by the

in 1930 and is generally dated to the Ming Dynasty.

''Wise and Benevolent Women'' (列女仁智圖)

''Wise and Benevolent Women'' survives in a 13th-century copy dating to the Song dynasty, and is today located in the Palace Museum in Beijing. It illustrates a subset of the women described in the Han dynasty work '' Biographies of Exemplary Women''. The 5-meter-long scroll is divided into 10 sections, with each section containing a short description.

Notes

References

* * Ci hai bian ji wei yuan hui (). Ci hai (). Shanghai: Shanghai ci shu chu ban she (), 1979.

External links

The Admonitions Scroll in the British Museum洛神賦图在线高清展览
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gu, Kaizhi 340s births 406 deaths Jin dynasty (266–420) painters Jin dynasty (266–420) government officials Painters from Wuxi Politicians from Wuxi 4th-century Chinese painters 5th-century Chinese painters