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Portrait of Wang Shimin
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IN Western countries, portrait painting has a very long history and has always been regarded as an essential part of visual art and culture. The world’s oldest known portrait was discovered in a grotto in France in 2006, which is thought to be created 27,000 years ago.
For centuries, portrait painting remained the most effective means to record and capture human images until the invention of the camera about 200 years ago.
However, in China, portrait painting has always been overshadowed by other more popular genres in traditional Chinese painting, such as figure, landscape, bird and flower painting, and for most of the times, portrait painting was just an often-overlooked aspect of Chinese art and culture.
Some scholars have cited Chinese aesthetic and ink-wash painting techniques as the key reasons why Chinese artists could hardly create “vivid and realistic” portraits.
According to these scholars, Chinese artists focus more on the “likeness-in-spirit” rather than the so-called “form-likeness” in their artworks. Also, some traditional Chinese painting techniques, such as plain drawing without shading and the “boneless” painting, make it difficult to create depth and dimension.
So, despite the fact that Chinese artists are said to have started painting portraits as early as 3,600 years ago, this genre didn’t attract much attention until the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907).
Some critics claim that the three-dimension concept in portrait painting was first imported into China along with Buddhism from India about 2,000 years ago. Indian Buddhist mural paintings usually include portraits of religious figures.
During the Tang Dynasty, a group of well-known portrait painters, such as Yan Liben (c. AD 601-673) and Wu Daozi (AD 680-759), appeared. The former is known for his work “Thirteen Emperors Scroll” as well as the Portraits at Lingyan Pavilion.
The latter, deemed “one of the masters of the seventh century,” is remembered today for his portrait of Confucius.
However, it was not until the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties that portrait painting in China began to make considerable progress.
During Ming Dynasty, Zeng Jing (1564-1647) found the Bochen School, known for their realistic, illusionistic portraits. Many critics say that Zeng played a significant role in Chinese artists’ assimilation of illusionistic concave and convex method of Western oil painting and Zeng’s portraits were “breathtaking real, as though they were a reflection of the sitter in the mirror.”
Again, many believe that Zeng’s portrait painting style was largely influenced by Western missionaries and artists such as Italian Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci (1552-1660) and other European artists who had brought some Western painting techniques to China during the late Ming Dynasty.
The most representative work of Zeng’s portraits is the widely acclaimed Portrait of Wang Shimin, a 64 x 42.7cm, ink and color on silk hanging scroll. Zeng was around 50 when he painted this portrait of a young Wang Shimin (1592-1680), also a renowned painter of his time.
In the portrait, Zeng first used the baimiao or plain drawing, a traditional Chinese painting technique, to depict the sitter’s contour and features. Then he used layers of light shading to create illusionistic concave and convex. And he finished off the work by touching it with light colors.
As always, Zeng left large empty spaces around the figure.
Zeng’s distinctive style has influenced many generations of portrait painters in China.
In the following Qing Dynasty, European missionaries and artists, such as Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766), an Italian Jesuit lay brother and missionary who served as an artist in the imperial court for about 50 years; Jgnatius Sickeltart (1708-1780), a painter and missionary from Bohemia and Jean Denis Attiret (1702-1768), a Jesuit painter and missionary from France, continued to influence Chinese portrait painting.
They taught Chinese painters the laws of linear perspective and chiaroscuro, which were later integrated into the traditional Chinese painting to create the three-dimension effect in nearly all local genres, including portrait painting.
During the Qing Dynasty, some Chinese and European artists created a number of gorgeous portraits of emperors, high-ranking officials and beautiful court ladies. However, it seems that none of them can match Zeng’s masterpiece in its monumental status as a milestone in the evolution of portrait painting, an often overlooked aspect in Chinese art and culture.
The “Portrait of Wang Shimin” is now housed in Tianjin Art Museum in Tianjin, a major port city in northern China.
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