Yun Shouping

Yun Shouping was born to a poor family. Little is known about his early

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.