Wu Li: an early-Qing master painter who trained for the priesthood at Macau's St Paul's College

A master of early-Qing landscape painting — one of the "Six Masters" — who was also one of China's first Catholic poets and Jesuit priests. In 1681 he came to St Paul's College in Macau to study theology and Latin, and in 1688 was ordained at Nanjing as Simon-Xavier a Cunha, among the earliest Chinese Jesuit priests. His Macau years mark a distinctive chapter in the history of Chinese–Western cultural exchange.

A landscape master at the summit of early-Qing painting who, past fifty, crossed the sea to Macau — reading Latin and watching the South China Sea from a seminary window, trading the brush for the priesthood.

Wu Li was a master of early-Qing landscape painting, one of the "Six Masters", and one of China's first Catholic poets and Jesuit priests. The years he spent training for the priesthood at St Paul's College made Macau a distinctive coordinate in the history of Chinese–Western cultural exchange.

Profile

• Chinese Name: 吳歷 (styled Yushan; the Hermit of the Ink Well)
• English Name: Wu Li
• Born: 1632 (Changshu, Jiangsu)
• Died: 1718 (around Shanghai)
• Region: Changshu / Macau / Shanghai
• Domains: Culture · Painting · Religion
• Subject type: Cultural figure · Painter · Jesuit priest

Background

Wu Li was born in Changshu, Jiangsu, in 1632 and studied painting from a young age under Wang Shimin and Wang Jian, drawing also on the Yuan masters Huang Gongwang and Wang Meng. He became a leading figure of early-Qing landscape painting, ranked with the "Four Wangs" and Yun Shouping among the "Six Masters". After the death of his wife and his teachers in middle age, he underwent a deep spiritual turn, converted to Catholicism, and at fifty resolved to enter the priesthood.

Career

I. St Paul's College, Macau (1681)

In 1681 Wu Li travelled to St Paul's College in Macau to study theology and Latin. He had been intended to sail to Europe with the Jesuit Philippe Couplet, but was judged too old and not yet fluent enough in Latin, and so remained in Macau to study. From a seminary that looked out over the South China Sea he gave himself to his studies, later recording the period in verse: it was not possible to go to Europe, so he stayed in Macau through autumn and spring.

II. Ordination (1688)

After roughly seven years of study, Wu Li was ordained at Nanjing in 1688, taking the name Simon-Xavier a Cunha — among the earliest Chinese Jesuit priests. For the next thirty years he served as a missionary in the villages around Shanghai and Jiading, living plainly and steadfastly, until his death in 1718.