Rediscovering Zhang Jin and the Ming Painting Academy

Zhang Jin 張錦 was the leading master of Buddhist and Daoist figure painting in the mid-Ming court. Yet his name is little known in current Ming painting history. This is not surprising considering that, until recently, the entirety of early and mid-Ming court painting, which played an important role in setting new trends during this time, has been a relatively unexplored area. Even less is known about the Ming Painting Academy. In fact, the lack of information on the Ming Painting Academy has led many scholars to question its very existence. In order to fill this gap in Chinese painting history, I have dedicated much of my past research to the task of reconstructing the missing biographies of the Ming court painters and tracing the institutional history of the Painting Academy. My initial discovery including new dates and biographical information for Zhang Jin and four generations of his family was more than a decade ago. However, without a single surviving painting attributed to the Zhang masters, they seemed destined to remain in the archival realm of Ming painting history. This all changed, however, by the recent discovery of a painting by Zhang Jin (Fig. 1), which sheds new light on not only the outstanding achievements of the Zhang masters, but also their contribution to the emerging trend of Daoist figure painting. Even more importantly, through a subsequent reexamination of the Zhang masters’ careers, I was able to gain new insight into the still enigmatic military-artisan painters and the military ranking system of the Ming Painting Academy. To fully understand the reconstructed careers of Zhang Jin and his family, it is necessary to first briefly introduce the institutional history of the Ming Painting Academy. The first part of this essay traces the formation and major institutional changes of the academy. The second part reexamines the career of Zhang Jin and how his family entered the Ming court from a military background in Shandong. The final part introduces the recently discovered painting by Zhang Jin and the Zhang family’s role in setting a new trend in Daoist figure painting in the mid-Ming court. The Ming Painting Academy