Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Yang Wujiu
Southern Song painter and ci poet who refused court summonses and set a new manner of ink plum painting, best known for Four Views of Plum Blossom
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 Buzhi · Hao Taochan Laoren · Hao Qingyi Zhangzhe
Yang Wujiu, courtesy name Buzhi, came from Qingjiang in Linjiang commandery, in today's Jiangxi, and later lived in Nanchang. Claiming descent from the Han writer Yang Xiong, he wrote his surname with the hand radical. In the Shaoxing era he refused repeated summonses to a court bent on peace with the Jin. He painted plum, bamboo, pine and rock in ink, outlining plum petals in ink line, a method that shaped later ink plum painting; his calligraphy followed Ouyang Xun and his ci poems are collected as Taochan ci. The Palace Museum holds his Four Views of Plum Blossom, inscribed in 1165.
Life and times
Dates 1097 CE–1171 CE