Wang Yuanqi (;

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

: Wáng Yuánqí; 1642–1715) was a Chinese painter of the

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

. Wang was born 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 delineates ...

in the

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 ...

province and tutored in painting by his grandfather Wang Shimin (1592–1680). His style name was 'Mao-ching' and his

sobriquet A sobriquet ( ) is a descriptive nickname, sometimes assumed, but often given by another. A sobriquet is distinct from a pseudonym in that it is typically a familiar name used in place of a real name without the need for explanation; it may beco ...

was 'Lu-t'ai'. Wang is a member of the

Six Masters of the early Qing period The Six Masters of the early Qing period () were a group of major China, Chinese artists who worked in the 17th and early 18th centuries during the Qing dynasty. Also known as orthodox masters, they continued the tradition of the scholar-painter, ...

, also known as the '

Four Wangs The Four Wangs () were four Chinese landscape painters during the Qing dynasty in the 17th century, all with the surname Wang. They are best known for their accomplishments in ''shan shui'' painting. The painters They were Wang Shimin (1592 ...

, a Wu and a Yun'. They are also often regarded as the principal figures of the 'Orthodox School' of Chinese landscape painting. Wang Yuanqi was two years old when the New Qing Dynasty was founded (1644). He rose to prominence as a court official and eventually was appointed curator of the imperial collection during the reign of the

Kangxi Emperor The Kangxi Emperor (4 May 165420 December 1722), also known by his temple name Emperor Shengzu of Qing, personal name Xuanye, was the third emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the second Qing emperor to rule over China proper. His reign of 61 ...

. He remained a court official throughout his long career and died at age 73 in 1715. His landscapes followed the model of the

Yuan Dynasty The Yuan dynasty ( ; zh, c=元朝, p=Yuáncháo), officially the Great Yuan (; Mongolian language, Mongolian: , , literally 'Great Yuan State'), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after Div ...

artists who broke away from the

Northern Song The Song dynasty ( ) was an 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 Ten Kingdoms, endin ...

tradition of rendering landscapes "real enough to walk through" to more personal abstractions. His style and technique demonstrates influences from, for example, the artist Huang Gongwang, especially in the use of dry brush strokes and ink washes and his use of colour, often making "colour patterns a component of his dense compositional structure, complementing the force of abstract design with the rhythmic flow of colour."Jerome Silbergeld. ''Chinese Painting Style: Media, Methods, and Principles of Form''. University of Washington Press, 1982, p. 26 His 1711 ink and color-on-silk painting, ''Landscape in the Style of Huang Gongwang'', is in Singapore's Asian Civilisations Museum collection and his version of Wang Wei's (now lost) eighth century hand scroll, ''The Wang River Villa'', also painted in 1711, in the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

, New York City. File:Wang Yuanqi, after Wang Meng's Mountain Dwelling on a Summer Day.jpg, Wang Yuanqi's ''Mountain Dwelling on a Summer Day''

Notes

External links

Wang Yuanqui on the Met Museum Internet siteWang Yuanqui on the National Palace Museum Internet site
Qing dynasty landscape painters 1715 deaths 1642 births Painters from Suzhou People from Taicang {{China-painter-stub

Notes

Further reading

External links