Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Zhou Wenju
Southern Tang court painter of figures and palace ladies, known today through Song copies such as The Double Screen
A desk holds an unrolled sheet bearing three bold black ink strokes, with a rack of many brushes above it, a stone ink slab and ink stick, a porcelain bowl, a red lacquer box, a dish of red seal paste and a paperweight; a small seated figure shows through a round window onto bamboo.
Also known as Zhou Wenju of the Southern Tang
Zhou Wenju came from Jurong in present-day Jiangsu and served the Southern Tang, becoming a painter-in-attendance under Li Yu. The Xuanhe Painting Catalogue says he painted figures, court ladies, ceremonial dress and carriages, and buildings in landscape, with a lean, hard brush and trembling drapery lines like the ruler's own calligraphy. The Double Screen in the Palace Museum, Beijing, showing Li Jing at a board game with his brothers, is generally taken as a Song copy, and fragments of a Song copy of his Palace Ladies scroll are divided among museums in the United States and Europe. The Literary Garden, also in Beijing, bears an old attribution to Han Huang but is now usually given to him because it matches the second half of his Figures in the Liuli Hall.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; court painter-in-attendance under Li Yu (961–975)