Exploration On Shen Zhou's Literati Freehand Flower-and-Bird Paintings Style And Its Forming Reason

Shen Zhou was an artist that epitomized poetry,calligraphy and painting in the Ming Dynasty.He introduced his own literary cultivation into the creation of flower-and-bird paintings and endowed it with spiritual connotation,forming the style features of combining poetry,calligraphy and painting.The Shen family was interested in literature and art,and it owned rich collections.Shen Zhou absorbed rich nutrients from the profound cultural deposits accumulated by his family,and laid a solid foundation for his own development of literature and art.He had a wide learning of other artists in his paintings.In his early years,he learned from Wang Yuan,Qian Xuan,Zhang Zhong and other flower-and-bird painters of the Yuan Dynasty.In this stage,his flower-and-bird paintings were exquisite and enjoyable,so they had a style of imperial-court decorative paintings.In his later years,he took Fa Chang as his teacher,and his creation concept and aesthetic orientation changed greatly.His flower-and-bird paintings got rid of the ' stylization' and advocated giving vivid description to different forms of objective things themselves,rather than physical similarity.Therefore,his creation presented a new look of arbitrary brushwork,natural and naivete.Shen zhou's flower-and-bird paintings could not only be respected by literati and officialdom,but also be loved by the public.It broke the aesthetic barrier between literati and officialdom and ordinary people.Therefore,it further expanded the aesthetic audience of literati flower-and-bird paintings,and drove the literati flower-and-bird paintings from the initial expression of emotions to the secularization of focusing on the true nature of life.Under his promotion,the status of literati flower-and-bird paintings was constantly improved and it gradually became the mainstream of flower-and-bird paintings in the Ming Dynasty.His flower-and-bird paintings style was painting with poems and calligraphy.It deeply practised the concept of 'the common origin of calligraphy and painting',and created a brand new pattern of literati flower-and-bird paintings.It set a new example for Wen Zhengming,Tang Yin,Chen Chun,Xu Wei and and many other literati painters of later generations,and laid the foundation for the formation of considerable freehand flower-and-bird painting style.