Chen Juzhong, Four Sheep

[Chen Juzhong’s Four Sheep Painting Page]

The Four Sheep Painting Page, painted by Chen Juzhong in the Southern Song Dynasty, is a silk version with colors, 22.5 cm in length and 24 cm in width
This is a very vivid animal painting created by Chen Juzhong, a painter of the Southern Song Dynasty. On a small scale, the painter chose a daily scene. On a small slope in the countryside of the village, the shepherd was taking a nap. Two small white goats were playing and playing. One seemed to take advantage of it, causing the other to bow in anger and bump into it. The other old sheep with a slightly heavier coat seemed to want to stop it, while the other stood on the slope and quietly looked down at what was happening below. The combination of four sheep seems to be a family. The mother is taking care of the children, while the father is high and maintains the dignity of the head of the family. The landscape should be as simple and bright as possible. The soil slope is only outlined with ink brush, and a few small grass and thorns are also arranged very sparsely. An old trunk is painted in the upper left corner of the picture, and a new branch grows on the side. The painter also pays attention to the details, such as two small tits standing on the tree trunk, which look down and are vivid. The whole picture highlights a word of “movement” in both material and scenery, and has a strong flavor of life
The shape of the goat in the picture is accurate, reflecting the painter’s profound painting skills, such as the posture of the little goat jumping and bumping, the front hoof contraction of the old goat, the vertical details of the ears, and even the flipped corners, all of which are meticulously displayed, reflecting the style characteristics of the fine and meticulous painting of the courtyard in the Song Dynasty. There is no inflexibility in the whole picture. The painter grasps the main characteristics of the object of expression, abandons trivial details, and pursues concise artistic effects with a few strokes and freehand brushwork
The composition of this painting is influenced by the trend of the times, and adopts the corner layout method of the Southern Song Dynasty courtyard landscape. The picture is divided by diagonal, the lower left part is all the scenery, and the upper right part is all left blank. The objects to be displayed are concentrated, so that the narrow ruler has a certain sense of space, and the contrast between virtual and real is more distinct, so as to enhance the attractiveness of the picture
In ancient Chinese characters, the word “sheep” is connected with “auspicious” and “yang”, and “auspicious” is written as “auspicious sheep” in ancient Chinese characters; Also, in the Book of Changes, the divination of the first month of each year is “three yang at the bottom and three yin at the top”. Therefore, when the ancient people called the first month of each year “three yang at the top”, this idiom also became a common auspicious phrase. The four sheep represented in this painting means that three suns are at the bottom and one sun is at the top, reflecting the good wishes for good luck
Chen Juzhong is the best at human and horse painting, but he is also very enthusiastic about animal sketching, and portrays it carefully and vividly. This page of “Four Sheep Painting” with auspicious meaning represents his artistic level in this field.