Sheng Maoye: Painting and Poetry in Late Ming Suzhou

It can be said that a man is defined by the world in which he lives; accordingly a man's work reveals his time and place. In the attempt to resolve questions related to the life and painting career of Sheng Maoye (ca 1575-1640), this thesis discloses key issues related to late Ming art and provides important information about the city of Suzhou, its cultural history, and the legacy of an under-recognized painter. Divided into three chapters, the first chapter focuses on the general quality of life as well as the men who shaped artistic practice in late Ming Suzhou. Sheng studied, collaborated, and associated with many prominent late Ming artists and scholars including Ding Yunpeng, Li Shida, Fan Yunlin, Wen Zhenmeng, and Chen Guan. The second chapter examines Sheng's place in China's continuing painting lineage. Sheng combined revitalized styles and formats first introduced in the Southern Song with others established in Suzhou throughout the Ming dynasty, to create his own unique method. Characteristically he utilized moist brushwork on fans and album leaves to depict atmospheric scenery associated with the changes of the seasons and weather conditions like those found in his native Suzhou. The final chapter explores the critical and popular importance of poetry in a variety of artistic traditions during the late Ming. Heterodox schools of poetry criticism, like the Gongan school founded by the Yuan brothers, arose in opposition to the orthodoxy of the fugu revivalists. Publishers produced a great number of woodblock printed books joining poetry and illustrations. Tang Xianzu combined jiju shi (collected lines [of Tang] poetry) and drama together for the first time in his well-known play Peony Pavilion of 1598. Sheng too satisfied the late Ming popular demand for intimate visual formats and Tang poetry by not only inscribing poetic couplets on his paintings but by creating something new, a kind of jiju hua (collected lines painting).