Xu Wei and European Missionaries:
Early Contact between Chinese Artists
and the West
Chen Ruilin
陳瑞林　Professor
Academy of Fine Arts, Tsinghua University
As All Embellishments Fade, Freshness Fills
the Universe - The Formation and Development
of Freehand Flower-and-Bird Ink Paintings of
Chen Chun and Xu Wei
Chen Xiejun
陳燮君　Director and Researcher
Shanghai Museum
The period encompassing the late Ming and early Qing Dynasty in the 16th and 17th centuries was an era
When considering the development of flower-and-bird paintings in the Ming Dynasty, the most remark-
of momentous change in Chinese society. It was also an era of great change in Chinese painting. Literati art-
able is the achievements of freehand flower ink paintings. Of all artists, Chen Chun and Xu Wei have been
ists gathered under the banners of a multitude of different Schools, and masterful artists appeared one after
the most groundbreaking and inspirational, to the extent that they are known as “Qing Teng and Bai Yang”
another, producing a multitude of works to greatly advance the development of Chinese painting. As literati
in the history of Chinese painting. Chen Chun, a foremost example of the “Wu Men” painting school, sought
art developed, however, Western art was encroaching upon China and influencing Chinese painting. The suc-
inspiration in landscapes and flowers. In particular, he inherited the tradition of flower-and-bird ink painting
cession of European missionaries that came to China brought Western painting with them and, actively inter-
established by Shen Zhou and other preceding masters. Through a combination of uninhibited brushwork
acting with China’s scholar-officials in the course of their missionary activities, introduced Western painting
and ink he established a new mode in his own right, which emphasized vigour and free style. By combining
to China’s literati artists via various means.
poetry, literature, calligraphy and painting, a new dimension of freehand flower painting was opened to the
Interaction between Chinese literati artists and European missionaries in the period straddling the late
literati.
Ming and early Qing, the transmission of Western art in China, and the influence of Western painting on
Xu Wei, on the other hand, built on the foundation laid by Chen Chun to establish a splashing style of
Chinese painting are all intriguing questions. European missionaries initially arrived in the coastal regions of
abstract freehand flower painting. Inner thoughts were expressed instantly, with vigorous lines and brushes
Guangdong and Fujian provinces. Literati art was most vibrant in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces on the low-
and as such Xu Wei was pivotal in maturing this conceptual painting technique. His style would be a clas-
er reaches of the Yangtze River, and because government officials and merchants frequently travelled there
sic benchmark for generations to come, and his influence has been profound. The background behind Chen
was a coming and going of officials, literati and merchants in the Guangdong and Jiangsu-Zhejiang regions.
Chun’s emergence is the development of literary flower-and-bird paintings, which came to prominence fol-
Between 1540 and 1542, Xu Wei resided in Yangjiang in Guangdong. It is still unknown whether he had
contact with European art introduced by the missionaries; however, it is an established fact that in the winter
of 1585 or the spring of 1586, he met with Jesuit missionaries Michael Ruggerius and Antonio de Almeida in
his home region of Shaoxing.
Even more intriguing is that Dong Qichang, who was thirty years Xu Wei’s junior and a leader in the art
world at the close of the Ming Dynasty, very likely had contact with the missionary Matteo Ricci, and that
in Dong Qichang’s sphere there were Chinese painters such as Zhao Zuo and Shen Shichong, who had been
influenced by the West. The network relationship in the late Ming and early Qing between scholar-officials
lowing the zenith of literary paintings in the mid Ming Dynasty; Xu Wei’s rise cannot be separated from the
late Ming Dynasty – a time when the society departed from the classics and rebelled against orthodoxy and
at the same time individualism was encouraged.
The rise of Chen Chun and Xu Wei, contributing a revolution to flower-and-bird painting, foreshadowed
an enormous and fundamental change the direction of this painting genre in China ever after. The Qing Dynasty’s Shi Tao, Bada Shanren, the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou, Shanghai-style masters such as Zhao Zhixian, Wu Changshuo, and modern painters such as Qi Baishi, Pan Tianshou, etc., can all trace their roots to the
“Qing Teng and Bai Yang” – whose unparalleled status in the painting history of China is evident.
and Western missionaries in China’s interior, the network relationship between Xu Wei, Dong Qichang and
other literati artists and the Western missionaries, the external influences that Western missionaries imposed
and the response of China’s literati artists are issues that still await close examination and study.
Macao, as an important base for the early activities of the Western missionaries, attracted Mainland literati artists such as Tang Xian and Wu Li. Using Macao’s rich historical resources, it is possible to initiate
research into the artistic exchange between China and the West during the late Ming and early Qing, an important subject in the study of Chinese art history.
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