NOTES AND QUERIES
285
NOTES ON HO CHUNG A 19TH CENTURY ARTIST IN
KWANGTUNG
From a view-point of the history of painting in Kwangtung, as I have pointed out in my other study1, the rich city of Nan-hai ♬
always acts as a centre. As early as the late 15th century, Lin Liang, a native of Nan-hai, had been a reputed artist for the subject of bird-and-flower in Peking2. Later, since the latter part of the 17th century and particularly in the 18th century, landscape formed the major interest for Kwangtung painting. The most significant landscapist in the 18th century was certainly Li Chien (1747-1799), an artist of Shun-te. In the first half of the 19th century, Hsieh Lan-sheng ✯ (1760-1831), a native of Nan-hai was again a reputed landscape artist in Kwangtung. With regard to bird-and-flower painting, although it had not been popularly favoured until the second half of the 19th century, yet the most appreciated artist for this subject at that time was Ho Chung *#; once again a native of Nan-hai.
Influenced by a long cultural tradition and in order to express the elegant taste of the literati, Chinese artists have customarily liked to choose a short but poetic term for their personal and literary name. Similarly, they could also choose a short but poetic phrase to name their studio. This cultural tradition had produced the same influence on Ho Chung. In the past, artists have been very pleased to call themselves as a mountain of some sort. In the 14th century, the name of an outstanding goldsmith was Chu the Blue-mountain. In the 16th century, the leading artist Wen Cheng-ming (1470-1559) was also called Heng-shen #j, a mountain of equilibrium; while one of his chief followers, Lu Chih (1496-1576) was called Pao Shan 1,; a covered mountain. In the 18th century, Wang Fu-chih (1619-1692) a scholar, and Chang Wen-tao (1764-1814) an artist, both called themselves Chuan-shan #u; a boat-like mountain. Active in between of these two figures, Tung Pang-ta (1699-1769) a court artist in Peking had styled himself as Tung-shan, i.e. 'an Eastern mountain' Later, in Kwangtung, Chang Wei-ping * (1780-1859) artist of Pan-yu
was known for his literary name, Nan-shana mountain in the south. Similar to those artists just listed, Ho Chung had chosen Tan-shan A, a red mountain, as his first literary name.
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