Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Wang Gai
Early Qing painter from Xiushui, long resident in Nanjing, who compiled and drew the landscape volume of the Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting
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 Anjie · Originally named Gai · Zi Dongguo
Wang Gai, first named Gai with a different character and later known by the courtesy name Anjie, came from Xiushui, today's Jiaxing in Zhejiang, and spent most of his life in Nanjing painting landscapes and figures. Shen Xinyou, son-in-law of the dramatist Li Yu, owned forty-three landscape models by the late Ming painter Li Liufang and asked Wang Gai to expand them into a manual; the first part of the Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting came out in 1679. With his brothers Wang Shi and Wang Nie he went on to compile the volumes on orchids, bamboo, plum, chrysanthemum, flowers and birds, published in 1701. His prose collection is titled Shanfei quanli tang wengao.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; active in the Kangxi era; the first part of the Mustard Seed Garden Manual appeared in 1679