Ni Zan
Painter of empty landscapes.
Ni Zan gave away his possessions and lived on a houseboat. His sparse pictures with a few trees, an empty pavilion and distant mountains became an ideal for the scholars.
Ni Zan was born in 1301 in Wuxi into a very wealthy family. He received a refined upbringing, collected books, art and antiques, and had a library tower built on the family estate. He was known for his extreme fastidiousness about cleanliness: according to the stories he had the trees in his garden washed and avoided people he considered uncouth. Much of this is anecdote.
Around 1350, as the Yuan dynasty began to break apart in rebellion and taxes became burdensome, he gave away or sold most of his possessions. For some twenty years he then led a wandering life on a houseboat among the lakes and rivers around Lake Tai, staying with friends and in temples.
His paintings often share the same structure: in the foreground a shore with a few sparse trees and an empty pavilion, in the middle a broad stretch of empty water, and in the far distance low mountains. No people are visible. The brush is dry and light, and the ink pale. The pictures radiate stillness, distance and solitude. One example is The Rongxi Studio of 1372 in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. He often wrote poems directly on the pictures.
Ni Zan is counted among the Four Masters of the Yuan dynasty. For later scholars he became the ideal of the pure, independent artist. In the Ming period it was said that families in the region were judged refined or vulgar according to whether or not they owned a Ni Zan. His style has been copied by countless painters.