The scroll of Wu Zhizhong’s leisure and fasting

[Wu Zhizhong Leisure Zhai Map Volume]

Leisure Zhai Map Volume, Yuan Dynasty, Wu Zhizhong painting, paper, ink, 21.8 cm in length and 31.9 cm in width
This picture is Wu Zhizhong’s painting of a mountain villa for his people, Wu Yanneng
The painter wrote his own title: “It is rare in the wild, that is, many things are happy. Sitting in the high shade, looking at the clouds from afar. Wu Zhizhong in the East Garden wrote a poem for Yan Neng, the patriarch, and collected pottery sentences.” The next seal was “Yanling Aristocratic Family” and “Wu Zhizhong”
Wu Yanneng, Zinai, was born in Yanling (now Changzhou, Jiangsu) at the end of the Yuan Dynasty. Born in an official family, well educated since childhood, he once worshipped the master of Confucian classics, Hu Zhongyi, and had deep attainments in the study of Spring and Autumn Annals. Later, he lived in seclusion in the hometown of his close relative Zheng Juzhen, Shenanxi (now the southeast of Anhui, the upper reaches of Xin’an River). Wu Yanneng most admired Tao Yuanming, a famous scholar in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, for his lofty virtue of abandoning his official post and returning to seclusion, so he named his seclusion place “Leisure Zhai”
In terms of artistic techniques, this picture adopts the Pingyuan composition, which organically combines the close, middle and long shot. Near the picture, tall trees stand by the lake, and the “leisure and fast” as the main body is reflected among the trees. On the flat and winding banks of the river, and in the distant mountains and mountains, the picturesque scenery depicts the wild scenery of the ideal mountains and forests of the literati of the Yuan Dynasty
The whole painting is concise and not indulgent, creating a quiet and elegant atmosphere from scratch. The influence of Guo Xi’s painting techniques in the Northern Song Dynasty can be clearly seen by using cirrus clouds to chap the painting techniques of mountains and stones. Wu Zhizhong has few surviving works, and the Painting of Leisure and Zhai is an important material material to understand his painting style.