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Subject:Re: Chinese landscape painting on fan - Zou Yigui?
Posted By: rat Fri, May 13, 2022
Yes, this fan is also not by Wu. Here are some of his better-known pictures; note the sense of nervous energy conveyed by the brushwork of the trees and rock faces in the two landscapes (despite the relative placidity of the scenes otherwise): https://kknews.cc/culture/3a5my3o.html
There's a good deal going on in your fan, but it's very different from Wu's approach.
The calligraphy of the fan's inscription also has a deadening sameness (sorry) to it that is uncharacteristic of either Wu's signatures or the work of other calligraphers. (Also note that Wu normally didn't sign his regular name, he used one of what's called his "hao", a nickname, in his case 小僊 rather than his actual name 吳偉)
Famous painter names are added to unrelated pictures for various reasons. Traditionally, as you noted, access to genuine works was extremely limited, but I don't think your pictures are that old. Commonly, anonymous works had the name of well known painters added to them by dealers trying to increase the price they could charge for them. And there's also a market in China for decorative things with famous names on them, and people aren't too concerned whether they are by the named artist (or emperor) or not, they are just something nice to look at. There is actually a fair number of forgeries and mislabeled pictures with Zou Yigui's name on them, usually bird and flower hanging scrolls rather than landscape fans. I haven't seen many with Wu Wei's name though; I'm not sure why he was chosen for this fan.
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