Oil painting Art blog by Lucas Art

The most outstanding painter of the Tang Dynasty is Wu Daozi, and he is also considered by most collectors as the greatest talent of never known before and ever since. The great poem, Du Pu called him Painting Saga. Famous Paintings Record of Past Dynasties wrote: “Wu was walking on the time line of artistic achievement but he could not see Gu Kaizhi and Lu Tanwei in front of him and turning his head back no body was following.” He was alone by himself. The great poet and painter of the Song Dynasty, Su Shi said, “for poets, you could not go beyond Du Zimei (Du Pu), for writers not beyond Han Yu, for calligrapher not beyond Yan Zhengqing and for painter not beyond Wu Daozi. All the developments from the past to the present completed without exception.” Almost all the historic books on painting and its history have admired his achievement and agreed without exception that he is a “Painting Saga for hundred generations”.

Wu Daozi (685 t0 785 AD) was born in a poor family in Yu Xian of Henan Province. He started learning calligraphy from a young age and later turned his attention to painting. At age of twenty his talent started to shine. He went to the Capital Luyang as amateur painter and soon afterwards, the Xuanzong emperor learnt his reputation and appointed him as a court scholar. The period Wu Daozi lived was a period during which the Tang Dynasty was at peak of its great prosperity and the Empire enjoyed an unprecedented economic power and artistic freedom and creativity. In the two capitals, Luyang, the eastern capital and Chan’an the western capital, assembled the culture elites and the best, like twinkling stars brightening each other. Famous Paintings Record of Past Dynasties wrote: “up to now, the Tang Empire had enjoyed its prosperity for nearly two hundred thirty years, all the talents assembled and enriched each other and the most active was during the Kaiyuang and Tianboa periods of Xuanzong’s reign,” when the important Tang painters, Wu Daozi, Wang Wei, Zhang Zao, Li Sixun, Cao Bai, Han Gan, Chen Hong, Xiang Rong, Liang Lingzhan, Zhang Xuan, and Yang Huizhi lived.

Wu Daozi almost spent his entire life devoted to the murals of religious matters, including paintings depicting Buddhism and Taoism teachings. For example, on the north corridor of western pagoda at Qianfu Temple, he created a Buddhisattva in his own image. Thereafter, Han Gan did the same in his religious murals, Prostitute Xiao Xiao Writing on Chastity and A Column of Masters. They tried symbolically to break the restraints of strict religious teachings and to be creative in a divine world. He would not like to act as the guardian of religion but as an ordinary painter to be able to enjoy the free spirit of artistic expression. He even brought the aristocrats into the Hell: a Teaching Illustration. Wu was also a very successful landscape painter. Once the Xuanzong emperor consigned him to go to Sichuan to study the sights and views of local importance and specifically asked to bring back sketches of places he visited so he could paint them on his returr He returned from his assignment but without a single sketch. The Xuanzong emperor was very disappointed and annoyed by his carefullessness. However he came to the court calmly without any fear and worry and painted without any hesitation. Before the eyes of Emperor and his court officials, hundred miles of the roaring Jialin River and vast land of exuberant Sichuan appeared in a lightening speed. He finished the whole painting within one day. The court was astonished.

Wu Daozi was a very prolific painter and there are ninety three painting collected in Xuanhe Collection of Paintings, including, Presentation of Seal to the Emperor, Zhong Kui with Ten Fingers, Peacock and Ming Emperor, Celestial King with Pagoda, the God Guardian of Buddhism Scripts. Among them, Celestial King Delivering a Son, is his most important painting, depicting the story of the birth of Shakyamuni Buddha, the son of King Shuddhadana, and is now in Osaka Municipal Museum of Art. The Portrait of Buddha is now in Toufuku temple, Kyoto Japan. Both of them are considered to be copies in his name only. His other important work, Daozi Book of Scroll Paintings, is a collection of ink and brush sketches painted on paper and it is believed 50 pieces remained today but it was smuggled out of China in 1911 and lost from general public ever since. Wu Daozi had a great enthusiasm and pursued vigorously in the world of arts, very much like Michelangelo during the Renaissance. Famous Paintings Record of Past Dynasties wrote: “when Wu Daozi painting, his arches like blades, his lines like pillars and beams, all without the help of rulers and compasses.” When he doing figures, however large, he could start with either hands and armS or legs and foots, still being able to balance and control the overall composition. With the combination of meticulousness of a calligraphy and creativity of a great imagination, he painted many vivid pictures of beyond comparison, full of rhythm and colorful magic. His paintings did not deliberately exaggerate the flash of the heaven and the horror of the hell, and his inspiration mainly came from his thorough observation of earthly reality. His bold and unconstrained style of painting formed a remarkable contrast to the grace and elegance style of his predecessors Gu Kaizhi. However there is a common feature linked them two together, in which they both imitated the principle of calligraphy, in particular, the exquisite use of pen and the attention to the overall composition. Wu Daozi had been trained as a craft painter, and he was also a student of the great Tang calligraphers, Zhang Xu (date of birth unknown but he was most active during the reign of Xuangzong) and He Zhizhang (about 659 t0 744 AD). He was especially fond of “caoshu style” (a rapid cursive writing style of calligraphy) and his paintings radiated with vibrant caoshu rhythm of “writings”.