The school of painting is named after the area where it came into being. Why do you say "Shanghai faction has no faction"?

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there were many schools of painting in China, such as Wu Pai, Songjiang School, Yushan School, Lou Dongpai School and Maritime School in the late Qing Dynasty. Most of the painting schools in this period were named after the areas where the schools came into being, but "Shanghai School" was somewhat special, and some people thought that "Shanghai School had no schools".

After the Opium War, Shanghai became an open commercial port. Painters from all over the world live in Shanghai and organize groups. Shanghai became the center of painting activities. As a region, Shanghai is one of the reasons for the naming of painting schools.

Most of the main painters of the "sea painting school" are from Zhejiang, but Suzhou painters who came to Shanghai did not become the main force. Wu Pai has had a great influence since the Ming Dynasty. As a regional painting school, it has sustained vitality. Wu Pai was rich in elegance, but lacked pioneering and competitiveness, which could not meet the requirements of calligraphy and painting trading at that time. Some painters in Zhejiang can absorb the characteristics of various painting schools in Ming and Qing dynasties, but they cater to the interests of the citizens.

The representative painters of "Sea Painting School" created a festive and auspicious atmosphere in subject matter and content, and changed from "ink painting" to "heavy color" in technical form. The composition of "elegance" in the painting is relatively low, which meets the buyer's taste. The works of "maritime painting school" break through innovation on the basis of inheriting predecessors, with distinctive personality and free genre. Painters pay attention to the cultivation of taste and communicate with folk art, so they can appreciate elegance and vulgarity. "All rivers run into the sea" is another connotation of "Shanghai School" and is also tolerant of the current situation, immigrants, markets and citizens.

Abstract: Art schools are groups of artists with similar ideological tendencies, aesthetic views, creative methods and artistic styles in a certain historical period. Very different artistic styles cannot form a "genre", but they must have similar artistic styles to be called a "genre". Compared with the characteristics of Lingnan School and Beijing School in the same period, Shanghai School appears "no school". Of course, generally speaking, "Shanghai School" is a school of painting.