Wu Daozi (
or ), also known as Daoxuan and Wu Tao Tzu, was a Chinese painter of the
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 ...
. The British art historian
Michael Sullivan considers him one of "the masters of the seventh century."
[''Chinese Landscape Painting: The Sui and T'ang Dynasties''. (Berkeley: University of California press, 1980](_blank)
), pp. 50-52. In China, his paintings are believed to mark the peak of court painting. None of his works survive, however later surviving copies are based on his original drawings.
Wu's father died when he was at an early age, and he subsequently lived in poverty. He learned calligraphy from Zhang Xu and He Zhizhang, before specialising in painting. He pioneered realistic techniques, the formal establishment of brushwork, and landscape painting. He painted figures with round strokes so as to show their flowing clothes.
Works
He traveled widely and created murals in
Buddhist
Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...
and
Daoist temples. Wu also drew mountains, rivers, flowers, birds. No authentic originals are extant, though some exist in later copies or stone carvings. Wu's famous painting of Confucius was preserved through being copied in a stone engraving.
Legends
Numerous
legends gathered around Wu Daozi, often concerning commissions by
Emperor Xuanzong.
In one, Emperor Xuanzong called him to paint a wall of his palace. He painted a wall mural displaying a rich nature-scene set in a valley, containing a stunning array of flora and fauna and including a cave at the foot of a mountain. The story goes that he informed the emperor that it's not just what the emperor is able to see, Wu Daozi has made this painting in such a way, that a spirit dwells in the cave. Next, he clapped his hands and entered the cave, inviting the emperor to follow. The painter entered the cave but the entrance closed behind him and, before the astonished emperor could move or utter a word, the painting vanished from the wall. This story depicts the spirituality of art. The contemporary Swedish writer
Sven Lindqvist meditates on this legend and the challenge that it poses to modern aesthetics in his book, ''The Myth of Wu Tao-Tzu.''
Another legend states that Emperor Xuanzong sent Wu Daozi to
Sichuan
Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...
to study the green waters of the
Jialing River in order to complete a mural of its entire course.
[. ] Supposedly, Wu returned without sketches and rapidly painted the entire river from memory, completing the 300-
li account
[ within a single day. It is sometimes added that his technique was foiled by Li Sixun, who accompanied him and followed the traditional practice of working slowly from numerous prepared sketches. To the extent that it is grounded in a real event, however, it probably only reflects Wu's speed of execution and not a lack of reliance on sketches.
Another has it that a painter found one of the last surviving murals of Wu Daozi and learned to imitate the style. He then destroyed the wall, possibly by pushing it into a river, to ensure that no one else could learn the same secrets.
]
Legacy
''The Presentation of Buddha'' was featured in 2004-5 television presentations in China.
See also
* Chinese mythology
Chinese mythology () is mythology that has been passed down in oral form or recorded in literature throughout the area now known as Greater China. Chinese mythology encompasses a diverse array of myths derived from regional and cultural tradit ...
* Zhou Fang, contemporary Tang dynasty painter
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wu, Daozi
680s births
760 deaths
7th-century Chinese painters
8th-century Chinese painters
Buddhist artists
Painters from Henan
People from Xuchang
Religious artists
Tang dynasty painters