YUN SHOU-P'ING

born 1633, Yang-hu, Kiangsu province, China died 1690 Pinyin Yun Shouping, also called Yn Nan-t'ien artist who, together with the Four Wangs and Wu Li, is grouped among the major artists of the early Ch'ing (16441911/12) period who continued the orthodox tradition of painting, following the great codifications of the painter and art theoretician Tung Ch'i-ch'ang. Yn Shou-p'ing had an adventure-filled early life. Following the collapse of the Ming dynasty, Yn was taken along in flight by his father, a Ming loyalist, then separated from his father and adopted by a high-placed family among the ruling Manchus, and, finally, restored by stealth to his father in a Buddhist monastery. Yn refused to serve the foreign Manchus but instead cultivated the learned arts of poetry, calligraphy, and painting. He was a contemporary and close friend of the rich and famous Wang Hui, and Yn much admired himeven to the extent, it is said, of admitting the other's greater mastery in the art of landscape. Yn is generally associated with the painting of flowers, usually in a boneless (mo-ku) manner that emphasizes washes instead of lines. Yn earned the respect of both his contemporaries and later generations as an appropriate representative of the school of literati painting (wen-jen-hua).