Beijing

Also known as Su Dongpo (literally meaning: Su from the place named Dongpo), Su Shi is a towering figure in Chinese tradition. To better understand his status in Chinese history it can be said that he is the parallel asian version of the West’s Leonardo Da Vinci. Like Leonardo he was a man of many talents and diverse abilities. Su Shi came from a scholar family, he occupied many official posts rising to president of the board of rites. He was a prolific writer and his satiric verses and opposition to official policies frequently cost him his official status. Su was especially at odds with a political faction headed by Wang Anshi another famous and highly influential figure of the time. This faction's rise to power eventually resulted in Su being exiled repetitively to remote places far from government affairs. His first exile was to Hangzhou for 4 years where he built the well know pedestrian walk around the Western Lake that still bears his name to this day. Later, towards the end of his life he was exiled again, this time  to Huizhou and Hainan island for another six years. Su is considered to be the Song dynasty’s greatest poet, excelling in “shi”, “ci” and “fu” forms, as well as prose. Togther with his brother Su He and his father Su Xun all three family members were classified as three out of the eight greatest writers of the Tang and Song Dynasties. Su Shi was also one of the four greatest calligraphers of the Song together with Mi Fu, Cai Xiang and Huang Tingjian. He was an outstanding painter who together with Mi Fu inspired a new phase in the painting tradition. Su was a talented and prominent statesman that wrote important essays in the field of politics and civil law, he is remembered as an uncompromising man of morals who never hesitated to air his opinion even in situations where his life was at risk. Su’s poetry and art were inspired by Taoism and Buddhism but his political views were strongly imbedded in Confucian philosophy which flourished during his life time and reached a new level in the form of Neo-Confucianism.

Su Shi is famous for his distinct Kai Style (standard script) Calligraphy. His characters are exceptionally fat and vigorous, clearly using a lot of ink, leaving the brush wet until the very last stroke of each character. His calligraphy demonstrates patience, self confidence and internal vitality. The contact between the brush and paper is a slow process of continuous self awareness and deep concentration. On top of his famous Kai style, his Poem of Cold Food Festival is known as the 'Third running style script under heaven'.

As a forerunner of the Literati tradition of landscape painting, his theory of art inspired what was to become the most dominant trend in Chinese landscape painting. The Four Masters of the Yuan Dynasty brought this tradition to its mature form. Su Shi claimed that the depiction of reality and the concentration on techniques that stress dimensions, depth and proportions are “tricks that should be kept for children”. The Literati school he inspired displayed a carefree style of painting which did not necessarily require the skills of an expert artist. It was dominated by scholars, intellectuals and government officials who entered the world of painting as a form of leisure using techniques borrowed from calligraphy. The Literati painter had no real intention on selling his art he painted in order to satisfy his spiritual needs.

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