Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Song Ke
Suzhou calligrapher of the Yuan–Ming transition, best known for draft-clerical script, who served as vice-prefect of Fengxiang
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 Zhongwen · Hao Nangongsheng
Song Ke, courtesy name Zhongwen, art name Nangongsheng, came from Changzhou county in Suzhou. A swordsman and horseman in his youth, he thought of a military career in the last years of the Yuan, then shut himself away to study and devoted himself to calligraphy, and he was one of the Ten Friends of the North Wall with Gao Qi. Under the Hongwu emperor he was recommended and made vice-prefect of Fengxiang. He modelled his writing on Zhong You and Wang Xizhi and excelled in draft-clerical script, being counted with Song Sui and Song Guang as the Three Songs. His surviving calligraphy includes the Jijiu zhang and Du Fu's Travels of My Youth, and he painted bamboo; his Ten Thousand Bamboos is in the Freer Gallery.
Life and times
Dates 1327 CE–1387 CE