Picture scroll of Yu Zhiding Wang Shizhen releasing silver pheasant

[The picture of Wang Shizhen releasing the silver pheasant of Yu Zhiding]

The picture of Wang Shizhen releasing the silver pheasant, the thirty-ninth year of the reign of Emperor Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty (1700), Yu Zhiding painting, paper version, color setting, 26.1 cm vertically and 110.7 cm horizontally
The official script title of Yu Zhiding in the upper right corner of the screen is “The Silver Pheasant Chart”. In the upper left corner, a poem by Wang Shizhen was recorded, with the following title: “After the long summer rain on the Gengchen, the chief minister, Wang Gongshun, stayed in the capital for a long time. He examined the poem as the title, and ordered to draw a picture of the silver pheasant, as if it were a scholar’s pen. He proposed to apply for the government, fearing that he might look relaxed and elegant, and his pen could not be as elegant as anything else.” The “Gengchen” was the thirty-ninth year of Kangxi (1700) in the Qing Dynasty, when Yu was 54 years old. There are two questions about Wang Yuan and Shi Kui, the students of Wang’s family
This painting is the masterpiece of Yu Zhiding’s portrait in his later years. It shows the story of Wang Shizhen, a famous scholar in the Qing Dynasty, who set aside a silver pheasant for missing his hometown after visiting the capital for a long time. The picture shows Wang Shizhen sitting on a chair in front of the court, holding a scroll in his hand to meditate. In front of him, a child is opening the cage door to release the silver pheasant. The picture is full of clouds, the distant mountains are misty, and the houses at the foot of the mountains are hidden among the clouds. It is an empty and quiet scene, which appropriately shows the inner feelings of the hero who is in a high position, who yearns for his hometown and wants to get rid of the cage. The content of Wang’s poems and the inner rhyme contained in them are fully expressed through painting, which is poetic and picturesque, and very infectious
The portrait in this picture is lifelike and vivid, which is almost the same as other surviving portraits of Wang Shizhen. However, there is something that can’t be found in the picture, such as the elegant and unrestrained manner. The painting method integrates the ink bone method and the Jiangnan method, which shows the typical style of Yu Zhiding’s painting art in its mature period, and represents the artistic level of Yu’s portrait painting in the middle and late years.