生平

世代隐居吴门，居苏州相城。曾祖父是王蒙的好友，父亲沈恒吉又是杜琼的学生，书画乃家学渊源。父亲、伯父都以诗文书画闻名乡里。

沈周一生家居读书，吟诗作画，优游林泉，一生未应科举，始终从事书画创作。他学识渊博，富于收藏，交友甚广，极受众望，平时平和近人，要书求画者「屦满户外」，「贩夫牧竖」向他求画，从不拒绝。甚至有人作他的赝品，求为题款，他也欣然应允。有曹太守新屋落成，欲搜罗画家，沈周亦在其中，沈周曰：「毋惊老母，旦夕往画不敢后」客人颇不平，曰：「太守不知先生，何贱先生于此？渴贵游可勿往。」沈周答曰：「往役义也，岂有贱哉？谒而求免，乃贱耳。」

沈周晚年病重，王鏊曾遣人问候，沈周作诗为谢，「勇退归来说宰公，此机超出万人中。门前车马多如许，那有心情问病翁。」字墨惨淡。两天后去世。

沈周的书画流传很广，真伪难辨。文徵明称他为飘然世外的「神仙中人」。沈周本人亦工诗文，著述宏富，现存著作有《石田稿》、《石田稿》、《石田诗选》、《石田先生集》、《石田先生诗文钞》、《客座新闻》、《沈氏客谭》、《石田杂记》、《吟窗小会》、《杜东原先生年谱》等。

艺术特色

沈周在元明以来文人画领域有承前启后的作用。他书法师黄庭坚，绘画造诣尤深，兼工山水、花鸟，也能画人物，以山水和花鸟成就突出。所作山水画，有的是描写高山大川，表现传统山水画的三远之景。而大多数作品则是描写南方山水及园林景物，表现了当时文人生活的幽闲意趣。

在绘画方法上，沈周早年承受家学，兼师杜琼。后来博取众长，出入于宋元各家，主要继承董源、巨然以及元四家黄公望、王蒙，吴镇的水墨浅绛体系。又参以南宋李、刘、马、夏劲健的笔墨，融会贯通，刚柔并用，形成粗笔水墨的新风格，自成一家。沈周早年多作小幅，40岁以后始拓大幅，中年画法严谨细秀，用笔沉著劲练，以骨力胜，晚岁笔墨粗简豪放，气势雄强。

沈周的绘画，技艺全面，功力浑朴，在师法宋元的基础上有自己的创造，发展了文人水墨写意山水、花鸟画的表现技法，成为吴门画派的领袖。

作品流传

沈周的代表作品现在多藏于大博物馆，故宫博物院藏有精美作品，重要的有：

• 《仿董巨山水图》轴（作于成化九年，公元1473年）

• 《沧州趣图》卷

• 《卒夷图》

• 《墨菜图》（这两幅原为册页，后合装成卷）

• 《卧游图》等。

南京博物院也藏有几幅沈周精品，其中有：

• 《东庄图》

• 《牡丹》轴（此画作于 1506年，当时沈周已81岁）

辽宁博物馆藏有两幅沈周的杰作，一幅是《盆菊幽赏图》卷，画面中树石茅亭，亭中饮酒赏菊者三人，意态优闲，布势疏朗，景物宜人。另一幅是《烟江叠嶂图》卷，作于正德二年（1507年），笔墨之运用，随心所欲，满纸烟恋，诚属沈周82岁晚年杰作。 　　

此外，台湾国立故宫博物院还藏有一幅沈周极有名的《庐山高图》轴。

市场行情

海外艺术市场偶尔会出售沈周作品。1991年11月艺术品拍卖季节，世界两大拍卖行苏富比和佳士得都推出了沈周作品，首先由苏富比在26日拿出一幅绘画作品《钓雪图》手卷，以8.8万美元成交。两天后佳士得推出两幅书法作品，一是《山水书法》，十六开册页，以6.5万美元成交；二是《悯日长短句》手卷，以2.8万美元成交。可以看出，沈周的书法作品价格低于其绘画作品，但又高于其他书家的作品。

参考

Life

Shen Zhou was born into a wealthy family in Xiangcheng, near the thriving city of Suzhou, in the Jiangsu province, China. His genealogy traces his family's wealth to the late Yuan period, but only as far as Shen's paternal great-grandfather, Shen Liang-ch』en, who became a wealthy landowner following the dissolution of Mongol rule. After the collapse of the Yuan and the emergence of the new Ming dynasty, the position of tax collector was assigned to the head of the Shen family, under the Hongwu emperor's new lijia system. This steadily and amply increased the family's wealth, while freeing Shen Liang-ch』en's male descendants from obligatory careers as Ming officials, and allowing them to live the majority of their lives as retired scholar-artists. Upon the death of his father, Shen Heng-chi, Shen Zhou decided to forgo official examinations and devote his life to the care of his widowed mother, Chang Su-wan. It is probable that he never intended to become an official, but refrained from making this obvious until his father had died. He thus renounced the life of official service while still preserving his reputation in an enduring act of filial piety. In this way, he was able to live a reclusive life, free of responsibility (except that of caring for his mother), and devote his time to artwork, socializing, and monastic contemplation of the natural world around him.

Cultural and Historical Context

Shen Zhou lived at a pivotal point in the history of Chinese painting, and contributed greatly to the artistic tradition of China, founding the new Wu School in Suzhou. Under the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368), painters had practiced with relative freedom, cultivating a more 「individualist,」 innovative approach to art that deviated noticeably from the more superficial style of the Song masters who preceded them. However, at the outset of the Ming, the Hongwu emperor (reg 1368–1398) decided to import the existing master painters to his court in Nanjing, where he had the ability to cultivate their styles to conform to the paintings of the Song masters. As Hongwu was notorious for his attempts to marginalize and persecute the scholar class, this was seen as an attempt to banish the gentry's influence from the arts. The dominant style of the Ming court painters was called the Zhe School. However, following the ascension of the Yongle emperor (reg 1403–1424), the capital was moved from Nanjing to Beijing, putting a large distance between imperial influence and the city of Suzhou. These new conditions led to the rise of the Wu School of painting, a somewhat subversive style that revived the ideal of the inspired scholar-painter in Ming China.

Work

Shen Zhou's scholarly upbringing and artistic training had instilled in him a reverence for China's historical tradition that influenced both his life and his art from an early age. He was accomplished in history and the classics, and his paintings reveal a disciplined obedience to the styles of the Yuan dynasty, to China's history, and to the orthodox Confucianism that he embodied in his filial life. He is most famous for his landscapes and for his "boneless" renderings of flowers, which are meticulously created in the style of the Yuan masters. However, he did not always paint within strict boundaries. His inherited prosperity afforded him the luxury of painting independently of patrons, and he did so in a way that, while revealing his historical influence, was uniquely his own. Shen possessed a large collection of paintings from the late Yuan and early Ming, which he and his scholar-painter colleagues used as models in forging the revivalist approach of the Wu style. He frequently combined experimental elements with the more rigid styles of the Yuan masters. Much of his work was done in collaboration with others, combining painting, poetry, and calligraphy at gatherings with his literati friends. It was upon these ideals that his Wu School was founded. For Wu painters, painting was a meditation, rather than an occupation. Shen Zhou never coveted his paintings, although they were frequently coveted and imitated by others. Through Shen Zhou's eyes, a painting was not a commodity, but the very extension of the painter himself.

This artist should not be confused with another Chinese artist named Shen Zhou who lived 1848–1903.

Sources

• Cahill, James. Parting at the Shore: Chinese Painting of the Early and Middle Ming Dynasty, 1368-1580. New York: Weatherhill, 1978.

• Edwards, Richard. The Field of Stones: A Study of the Art of Shen Chou (1427-1509). Baltimore: Port City Press, 1962, xvi.

• Edwards, Richard. 「Shen Chou and the Scholarly Tradition.」 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 24, No. 1 Oriental Aesthetics (Autumn, 1965), 45-52.

• Liscomb, Kathlyn. "Shen Chou』s Collection of Early Ming Paintings and the Origins of the Wu School』s Eclectic Revivalism." Artibus Asiae vol. 52, No. 3/4 (1992),215-254.

• Shan, Guoqiang, "Shen Zhou". Encyclopedia of China, 1st ed.