Immortal with Deer

A native of Daliang (present-day Kaifeng, Henan), Zhang Lu turned his attention to painting after repeated failures at imperial examinations despite his being a student of the imperial university. He started with
acquiring the court painter Wang E’s considered gossamer lines before mastering the Zhe painter Wu Wei’s spontaneity with a vigour all of his own. His figures reminiscent of Wu Wei’s and his landscapes resembling those by Dai Jin became so hotly sought after by literati of the north that they attracted many imitations, the mediocrity of which has somewhat tarnished the reputation of the Zhe figures. Deploring his “wild and unruly” brushwork, the literary luminary Gao Lian put Zhang Lu in the same group with Zheng Wenlin, Zhang Fu, Zhong Li, Jiang Song and Wang Zhao. To a certain extent, this simply reflects the disparity between literati taste and market preference during the latter half of the Ming dynasty and should perhaps be considered with some reservation when evaluating the merits of the Zhe painters.

The recurrent theme of divine blessing of longevity among academy painters of the Zhe School during the Ming period was largely attributable to the birthday culture at the time. Such paintings always contain readily recognizable symbols. There is, for example, the court painter Shang Xi’s Four Immortals Paying Homage to the God of Longevity (National Palace Museum, Taipei), where Hanshan, Shide, Liu Haichan and Li Tieguai, who are traversing a turbulent sea, all turn their eyes in salute towards the Old Man of the South Pole, or the God of Longevity, who is flying past atop a crane in the distance. Another example is Wu Wei’s Dongfang Shuo Stealing the Peach of Immortality (Mount Holyoke, College Art Museum), in which the Daoist immortal is seen fleeing with the peach he has stolen from Queen Mother of the West. The present specimen is no exception. Although the immortal portrayed can hardly be identified, the scroll he holds to his chest is inscribed with two characters for wishing people as long-living as Mount Song while auspiciousness is further augmented by the white deer.

Lightly coloured in only the figure’s headdress, lips, lapels, cuffs, sash and shoes, the painting stands out for its lines which are executed with varying degrees of pressure applied to the brush for the sake of variation. The tradition of using swift and contrasting lines to stress a figure’s ethereality or individuality was started by Wu Wei and embraced by Zhe painters in the latter half of the Ming dynasty. The intended effect is demonstrated here by the precise and vigorous lines with flying whites although they appear to be rough owing to the size of the scroll when compared with the meticulous drapery seen in Zhang’s album of immortals in the collection of the Shanghai Museum. Other examples with a blank background and emphasis on lines by the same painter include Magu with Birthday Offering (The Palace Museum, Beijing), Goddess with a Phoenix (The Palace Museum, Beijing), and Two Immortals (Tianjin Municipal Museum of Art).

(Entry written by Ho Ka-yi, in "The Bei Shan Tang Legacy: Chinese Painting" p. 105, translated by Tina Liem.)