Dong Qichang

Dong Qichang (; courtesy name Xuanzai (玄宰); 1555–1636) was a Chinese art theorist, calligrapher, painter, and politician of the later period of the Ming dynasty.

Life as a scholar and calligrapher

Dong Qichang was a native of Hua Ting (located in modern-day Shanghai), the son of a teacher and somewhat precocious as a child. At 12, he passed the prefectural Civil service entrance examination and won a coveted spot at the prefectural Government school. He first took the imperial civil service exam at seventeen, but placed second to a cousin because his calligraphy was clumsy. This led him to train until he became a noted calligrapher. Once this occurred, he rose up the ranks of the imperial service passing the highest level at the age of 35. He rose to an official position with the Ministry of Rites. Qichang's calligraphy drew inspiration from prominent calligraphers Wen Zhengming and Zhao Mengfu and of the masters of the Jin and Tang dynasties. These names are misleading as they refer to Northern and Southern schools of Chan Buddhism thought rather than geographic areas (hence a Northern painter could be geographically from the south and a Southern painter geographically from the north). He strongly favored the Southern school and dismissed the Northern school as superficial or merely decorative. Maintaining that the Northern school realized truth gradually, while the Southern school intuitively brought the actualization of such insight. By relating to the ancient masters' style, artists are to create a place for themselves within the tradition, not by mere imitation, but by extending and even surpassing the art of the past. Dong's theories, combining veneration of past masters with a creative forward looking spark, would be very influential on Qing dynasty artists as well as collectors, "especially some of the newly rich collectors of Sungchiang, Huichou in Southern Anhui, Yangchou, and other places where wealth was concentrated in this period". Together with other early self-appointed arbiters of taste known as the Nine Friends, he helped determine which painters were to be considered collectible (or not). As Cahill points out, such men were the forerunners of today's art historians. His classifications were quite perceptive and he is credited with being "the first art historian to do more than list and grade artists."

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