Yun Shouping
Chinese, 1633-1690
training, but he was reputed to have started painting beautiful flowers
at age eight. While his writings suggest an interest in landscape painting
in the styles practiced by the scholar elite, he is best known for paintings
of flowers. It is likely his early training came from a local school of flower
painters, but he took the genre to a level not reached since the Song
dynasty (9601279). He prided himself on his extreme poverty but traveled
in the company of the most famous (and wealthy) members of the
educated elite. He was a close friend of Wang Hui (see the joint hanging
scroll also on display in this gallery) and reportedly chose to paint flowers
since he felt he could not compete with that master in painting landscapes.
A popular story has it that Yun Shouping left his family so poor
at the time of his death that they could not afford a proper funeral and
that Wang Hui offered to pay for it.
Person TypeIndividual
