Shen Zhou
Founder of the Wu School.
Shen Zhou was a scholar in Suzhou who never took office. He painted landscapes, flowers and gatherings of friends with warmth and simplicity.
Shen Zhou was born in 1427 near Suzhou into a well-to-do family of scholars and art collectors. The family had on principle refrained from seeking government office, and Shen Zhou followed that tradition. He lived his whole life in the Suzhou area and looked after his mother until she died at a great age. He kept company with poets, collectors and friends and was known for his kindness.
Shen Zhou studied the old masters, especially the Four Masters of the Yuan dynasty, and his family owned important works that he could study. He developed a style with broad, soft brushstrokes and a warm, sometimes humorous tone. He painted landscapes, flowers, animals and everyday subjects, often with his own poems on the picture.
One of his best-known works is Lofty Mount Lu of 1467 in the National Palace Museum in Taipei, a tall hanging scroll he painted for his teacher's seventieth birthday. The picture is a token of reverence and shows a mountain he himself had never visited. He also painted albums of small scenes, in which a lone man sits on a mountaintop or birds and vegetables are depicted with simple warmth.
Shen Zhou is regarded as the founder of the Wu School, the group of scholar painters in Suzhou who dominated Chinese painting in the Ming period. He was teacher and model to Wen Zhengming, and he is counted among the Four Masters of the Ming, together with Wen Zhengming, Tang Yin and Qiu Ying.