Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Wu Li
Early Qing landscape painter from Changshu, one of the Six Masters, who became a Jesuit priest and spent thirty years in the Shanghai mission
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 Yushan · Hao Mojing Daoren · Hao Taoxi Jushi
Wu Li, courtesy name Yushan, art names Mojing Daoren and Taoxi Jushi, came from Changshu. He studied poetry with Qian Qianyi and painting with Wang Jian and Wang Shimin, took the Yuan masters as his models, and is counted with Wang Shimin, Wang Jian, Wang Hui, Wang Yuanqi and Yun Shouping among the Six Masters of the early Qing. In 1682 he went to Macau and entered the Society of Jesus, was ordained a priest in Nanjing in 1688, and spent nearly thirty years as a missionary around Shanghai and Jiading, dying in Shanghai in 1718. His paintings include Spring Colours on the Lake in the Shanghai Museum, and his poems were collected as Mojing shichao.
Life and times
Dates 1632 CE–1718 CE