NI TSAN

born 1301, Wu-hsi, Kiangsu province, China died 1374 Pinyin Ni Zan, original name Ni Yn-lin one of the group of Chinese painters later known as the Four Great Masters of the Yan dynasty (12061368). Although Ni Tsan was born to wealth, he declined to serve the foreign Mongol dynasty of the Yan and instead lived a life of retirement and cultivated the scholarly arts (of poetry, painting, and calligraphy), collected artistic works of the past, and associated with those of a similar temperament. He was characterized by his contemporaries as particularly quiet and fastidious, and many of those qualities are found in his paintings. He was much imitated by later painters, and therefore originals by him are difficult to authenticate. Generally it may be said that his paintings, usually landscapes, are spare in elements and are in ink monochrome only and that great areas of the paper are left untouched. There is often a rustic hut, without any further suggestion of human presence, a few trees and other scant indications of plant life, and elemental landforms with a sombre quiet throughout. The art of Ni Tsan and his peers in the Yan dynasty was opposed to the preceding standards of the Southern Sung academy, whose art immediately appealed to the eyes through obvious displays of virtuoso brushwork and a convincing pictorial reality. Ni Tsan's new style demanded concentrated viewing before the larger and, in fact, more complex plays of ink could be perceived. Toward the end of his life Ni Tsan is said to have distributed all his possessions among his friends and adopted the life of a Taoist recluse, wandering and painting in his mature style. After the restoration of Chinese rule under the Ming dynasty in 1368, he returned to urban life.