Chen Ruyan
Elegant Yuan-Ming landscape painter
Chen Ruyan(陈汝言) (1331-1371), courtesy name Weiyun(惟允, art name Qiushui(秋水), was a painter and poet at the end of the Yuan dynasty and the beginning of the Ming dynasty. He was originally from Langzhou in Shu (present-day Langzhong, Sichuan) and later moved to Wuxian. He and his brother Chen Ruzhi(陈汝秩) were known as 'Big Beard and Small Beard.' He studied the styles of Dong Yuan, Ju Ran, Zhao Mengfu, and Wang Meng. His surviving works include 'Bai Zhang Spring,' 'Immortal Mountains,' and 'Jing Creek.' At the end of the Yuan dynasty, Chen Ruyan served as a military advisor for Zhang Shicheng. In the early Hongwu period of the Ming dynasty, he was appointed an official in Jinan but was later executed for some offense. His 'Bai Zhang Spring' combines Dong Yuan's pi-ma texture strokes with Wang Meng's jie-suo strokes, while 'Immortal Mountains' follows the ancient style of Zhao Mengfu. Ni Zan even praised it in an inscription for its 'elegant, fresh, and distant' quality. He collaborated with Wang Meng on 'Mount Tai in Dense Snow,' using the tan-fen technique to depict snow scenes. His son Chen Ji(陈继) became a Hanlin Academy examiner in the Ming dynasty, and his grandson Chen Kuan(陈宽) continued the family tradition.