Ashmolean Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Chen Zizhuang, also known as Shihu in his late years, was from Rongchang, Sichuan province. He was good at martial arts in his early years and worked for the army in 1949. He studied traditional painting, calligraphy and seal carving, and was especially interested in archaic scripts. In the 1950s he developed his own style in the belief that the strokes of brushwork in painting should be the same as in calligraphy. He held in high regard eight particular master painters, including his acquaintances Wu Changshuo, Huang Binhong and Qi Baishi. In 1955 he became a researcher in the Sichuan Institute of Literature and History. The brushwork seen in this handscroll shows the artist’s practice in applying the skills of calligraphy and seal carving to landscape painting, also evident in other work displayed in this exhibition. A long comment praising this painting was written in running script by Song Wenzhi when Song visited Hong Kong in 1991. Song’s comment is attached to the same handscroll but not displayed.