Wen Fu Load,

With the exploration and promotion of some famous artistic masters such as Huang Gongwang, Ni Zan, Wang Meng and Wu Zhen, Literati Paintings, which were common in the Tang Dynasty and mature in the Song Dynasty, went into a heyday of development during the Yuan Dynasty, gradually forming a unique ethos of its own. On this basis, Dong Qichang creatively raised his view on paintings that painters in the South were better than the North at the end of the Ming Dynasty, directly leading to the result that the right of speak of Literati Paintings was gradually held by the upper scholars. Until early Qing Dynasty, though Literati Paintings independently performed at an unprecedented level, the right of speak was firmly grasped in the hands of the upper scholars and the court painters, which was the reason why the soul of the Literati Paintings got lost and declined. Faced with the serious internal crisis, the lower literati which were represented by the "Four Monks", continuously inherited and developed the unique temperament of the Literati Paintings which had been formed from the Song and Yuan Dynasty. Through the constantly exploration of the painters, their paintings appeared in their own special experiences and the emotion and got into the form of their strong spirit of the performance. Set in the development of the Literati Paintings in the early Qing Dynasty, this essay emphasizes on the analysis of the formation process, reasons, features of the spirit of the new performance and the important contributions to the development of the Literati Paintings.