Shi Ke
Founder of bold, satirical freehand figure painting
Shi Ke(石恪) (courtesy name Zizhuan(子专)) was a painter from the late Five Dynasties and early Song Dynasty, originally from Pi in Chengdu (now Pi District, Chengdu City). He had a bold and unrestrained personality, with a sense of humor and playfulness. He studied painting under Zhang Nanben(张南本) and was skilled in Buddhist and Daoist subjects, figures, and ghosts and gods. His brushwork was free and unconventional, often using grotesque and bizarre images to satirize the powerful, and he is regarded by later generations as the founding figure of the large-freehand style of simplified figure painting. In the third year of Qiande (965), he went to the Song capital Bianliang to paint murals for Xiangguo Temple but declined an official position in the imperial painting academy and returned to Shu, passing away on the way. In Kaibao 8 (975), he returned to paint murals for Xiangguo Temple again. Many of his works remained in the Shu region and around Bianliang. Su Shi(苏轼) once wrote a piece praising his painting called “Shi Ke’s Painting of Vimalakirti,” and Huang Tingjian also wrote poems commemorating his paintings. His works are characterized by quick and free brushwork combined with ink splashing techniques. His only surviving work, “Two Ancestors Harmonizing Minds,” is now in the Tokyo National Museum in Japan. Some scholars believe it may originally have been part of “Four Sleepers.” Shi Ke was also adept at landscapes, birds, and fish, and could compose poetry. Some of his paintings include “Hundred Ghosts at Play” and “Three Laughs.”