Lu Chih

Lu Chih was born in the village of Mei-liang at Pao-shan, near Soochow, one of the cultural and artist centers of Ming China. The Lu family had been steeped in scholarship for generations, and Lu Chih grew up in such an atmosphere of erudition and scholarly pursuit. After moving to Soochow and because his father and Wen Cheng-ming were good friends, Lu Chih was thus able to study painting under him.

Even as a youth, Lu Chih was an exceptional student. He came to be recommended in his village for a stipend to prepare for the government examinations, success in which would lead to the ultimate goal of the Chinese scholar--officialdom. Though Lu Chih took the provincial examinations several times, he was unsuccessful. Not wishing to use up more funds, he gave up pursuit of the exams and turned instead to painting, calligraphy, and gardening, thereby opening up a whole new realm of art for him.

Noted for both his innate talent and skill, Lu Chih from around the age of 50 turned to a life of reclusion at Chih-hsing Mountain, where he pursued scholarship and painting with even greater diligence. Surrounded by the wonders of nature, he became an astute observer of the land around him. Judging from his collection of manuscripts published posthumously, many of his works of poetry and prose dealt with intimate travels through the land and his admiration of plants and flowers. This lightness of being and the simplicity of life are also reflected in his paintings, which bear his unique quality of utmost purity and otherworldly elegance. Although Lu Chih's later years became increasingly difficult, he never gave up the joy of life in reclusion or wielding the brush.

Lu Chih, in addition to studying the painting of Shen Chou (1427-1509) and Wen Cheng-ming, went even further in his pursuit of painting styles by looking back to the Sung and Yuan. He also benefited from his association with other artists. In general, Lu Chih's surviving works reveal the landscape styles of such Yuan artists as Wang Meng (1308-1385), Wu Chen (1280-1354), and Ni Tsan (1301-1374) while also following the intimate approach of Southern Sung (1127-1279) landscape painting. In flower painting, he pursued the "sketching ideas" style practiced by Shen Chou and Ch'en Ch'un (1483-1544).

Under the guidance of Wen Cheng-ming, Lu Chih was able to achieve the full potential of Wang Meng's and Ni Tsan's brushwork. Lu excelled at using angular brushwork done with a slanted brush and at using light and dry ink, both of which convey the appearance and features of sharp, rocky mountains. Not coincidentally, the area around Chih-hsing Mountain where Lu Chih lived in reclusion is composed of granite, which tends to weather into such formations. The natural beauty of this tough stone not only reflected the pure resilience of Lu's character, but it also provided him with inspiration in painting his landscapes. Although the coolness and angularity of Lu Chih's late painting style also revealed his spiritual kinship with the manner of Ni Tsan, it also clearly is in a category of its own. Looking in retrospect at Lu Chih's accomplishments in painting, it was his otherworldly approach to painting that proved to be one of the keys to his success as an artist.



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