Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Fu Shan
Shanxi scholar, physician and calligrapher who stayed loyal to the Ming, lived as a Daoist healer and refused the Kangxi special examination
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 Zi Qingzhu · Chu Ming Dingchen · Hao Zhuyi Daoren
Fu Shan, first named Dingchen, first took the courtesy name Qingzhu meaning 'green bamboo' and later one read the same way meaning 'green master', and called himself Zhuyi Daoren among other names; he came from Yangqu, present-day Taiyuan in Shanxi. When the Ming fell he became a Daoist priest rather than shave his head and supported himself as a physician, and in 1654 he was jailed on suspicion of ties to the Southern Ming. Recommended for the special erudites examination in 1678, he refused to sit it and was allowed home. He wrote every script, his cursive above all, and painted landscapes; his writings are collected in the Shuanghong kan ji, and a gynaecology manual circulates under his name. The Palace Museum in Beijing holds his Thatched Pavilion by a Deep River (1666) and a cursive copy after Wang Xianzhi.
Life and times
Dates 1607 CE–1684 CE