Shitao
The individualist who wrote his own method.
Shitao was also of Ming lineage and became one of the freest painters of the Qing. He wrote that the only rule is to have no rules.
Shitao was born in 1642 near Guilin in southern China with the name Zhu Ruoji. Like Bada Shanren, he was a descendant of the Ming imperial family. When the dynasty fell his father was killed in a power struggle, and the little boy was rescued by a servant who took him to a Buddhist temple. He grew up as a monk and was given the name Shitao, which means roughly “Stone Wave”.
He led a wandering life. He spent long periods in Xuancheng and the Huangshan mountains, which he painted many times, and later in Nanjing and Beijing. In 1684 and 1689 he met the Qing emperor Kangxi when the emperor travelled south, which has been interpreted as an attempt to win patronage. In his last years he settled in Yangzhou, left monastic life and made his living as an artist.
Shitao is known for the text Remarks on Painting, in which he develops the idea of “the single brushstroke” as the foundation of everything. He criticised painters who merely copied the old masters and wrote that the highest method is to have no fixed method. His own works are very varied: bold landscapes with strong colours, dots and swirls, close-ups of flowers and bamboo, and experimental compositions. A well-known work is Searching Out Strange Peaks to Make Sketches of 1691 in the Palace Museum in Beijing.
Shitao is regarded as one of the most original painters in Chinese history. He inspired the Eccentrics of Yangzhou and the modernists of the 20th century, and Zhang Daqian forged his works so skilfully that experts were deceived. Today he is often seen as a forerunner of the idea of the artist as a free creator.