Shen Zhou

Shen Zhou was a painter in China’s Ming dynasty in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Shen was born to a wealthy family and was trained in the classical traditions of the Yuan dynasty that championed Confucius values of loyalty to family, government, and hard work. He painted commissions of landscapes and flowers in this disciplined, old style, but had enough money from his family and patrons to experiment in his own artistic practice. Shen began the Wu style in China that combined rigid traditional sensibilities with influence from untrained literati who experimented in painting and deeply personal expression. The revolutionary concept was embedding the artist into the artwork, and not viewing art as a commodity or a symbol of a uniform society.