秘殿珠林續編(乾清宮),頁317&*故宮書畫錄(卷五),第三冊,頁447&*故宮書畫圖錄,第八冊,頁369-370&*文從簡,生於神宗萬曆二年(西元一五七四),卒於清世祖順治五年(西元一六四八)。江蘇長洲人,為文徵明曾孫,字彥可,號枕烟老人。崇禎間考取貢生,明亡,入清不仕,書畫皆傳家學,而稍加變化。書法兼有唐李邕,畫山水兼有元倪瓚,王蒙筆法。 本幅畫一佛端坐木榻上,二從者捧物侍立兩側,一信女手持香炉,正跪地拈香頂禮。人物用筆勾勒與著色,都明淨秀雅可喜,惟畫佛造型皆與凡人無異,此乃因明以後,佛像畫已脫離宗教而入於純粹藝術欣賞範圍,畫家多屬兼習,偶或圖寫,率無稿本藉供臨摹。 &*Worshipping the Buddha Wen Ts’ung-chien (1574-1648) Ming dynasty Wen Ts’ung-chien was a great grandson of Wen Cheng-ming. His style name was Yen-k’o and his sobriquet was Chen-yen lao-jen. Sometime between 1628-1643, he received his kung-sheng degree. After the fall of the Ming he retired from official life. He studied the great ancient masters of calligraphy and painting, adapting each to his own taste. He modelled his calligraphy after the T’ang master Li Yung and derived his landscape style from Ni Tsan and Wang Meng. This painting shows a Buddha on a couch receiving offerings from two devotees. A nun holds an incense-burner and, prostrate, offers it to the Buddha. The drawing of the figures and the colors all create a clear and pleasing impression. The figures in this Buddhist painting seem little different from those in secular paintings. This demonstrates the tendancy of Buddhist painting from the Ming dynasty onwards to lost its religious associations and to become pure art. Iconographic painters were no longer specialist painters of Buddhist subjects, but painted according to their inclinations and did not follow the canonical compositions for Buddhist painting that had persisted earlier.