Li Shida (, ), was a Chinese painter of the

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...

. A native of

Suzhou Suzhou (; ; Suzhounese: ''sou¹ tseu¹'' , Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Soochow, is a major city in southern Jiangsu province, East China. Suzhou is the largest city in Jiangsu, and a major economic center and focal point of trade ...

Jiangsu Province Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its ca ...

, he obtained the position of a ''jinshi'' in the

imperial examination The imperial examination (; lit. "subject recommendation") refers to a civil-service examination system in Imperial China, administered for the purpose of selecting candidates for the state bureaucracy. The concept of choosing bureaucrats by ...

in 1574 during the reign of the

Wanli Emperor The Wanli Emperor (; 4 September 1563 – 18 August 1620), personal name Zhu Yijun (), was the 14th Emperor of the Ming dynasty, reigned from 1572 to 1620. "Wanli", the era name of his reign, literally means "ten thousand calendars". He was the ...

Biography

Li was born at a year around 1540. He grew up in

Xingguo Xingguo County () is a county in south central Jiangxi province, People's Republic of China. It is under the administration of and located in the north of the prefecture-level city of Ganzhou, with a total area of . Its population was 719,830 at t ...

Painting

Shida painted figures and landscape paintings. He also did flower painting (which he claimed he wasn't good at. He wrote an essay on five qualities he believed helped him paint. He claimed they were ability, sincerity, rarity, depth and harmony.

References

Painters from Suzhou 16th-century births Ming dynasty painters Year of death unknown {{China-painter-stub