Images of Profound Scholars under ZHANG Daqian’s Pen

The works with the profound scholars as the subjects account for a large proportion in ZHANG Daqian’s fig-
ure paintings. The images of these profound scholars are the conceptualized schema transformed from those under the ancient painters’ pens like SHI Tao’s. They are either in woods or beside springs, either playing zither or in grand and elegant scenes in ancient but magnificent style. Hereby, they get close to styles of Jin and Tang, and even“ease one”. ZHANG often com- pared himself to a profound scholar, drew the outlines of his appearance with simple strokes. Such craving to be a profound scholar was his emotional ballast of his longing for the life in seclusion, which could comfort his psychological loss. Among the works with such images, the evolution of his style was along the line of beauty and delicateness in his early years, elegance and magnificence in his middle age, and simplicity in his late years. His creation course was the one of“learning from ancient peo- ple and pursuing the innovation” and hence drew much attention of researchers.