Chen Chun (1483-1544) was a native ofSuzhou. Chen learned calligraphy and painting from Wen Zhengming, one of the Four Master Painters ofSuzhou. Departing later from the Wen style characterized by the use of light, soft brushwork, he took to free sketching and emphasized the mutual permeation of water and ink. Like Xu Wei, he contributed to the development of a free-style method for the creation of ink-and-wash paintings (shuimo hua) and exerted a strong influence over artists of later generations. Chen Chun was good at painting flowers and landscape. In doing landscape paintings, he was strongly influenced by Mi Fu of the Song Dynasty who portrayed ever-changing mist and fog in southernChinaby using a subtle combination of dense and thin ink black. Chen' representative work in this field isMountAnhua(anhua shan tu,kept at theTianjinArt Museum).Luoyang Spring(luoyangchun se tu,kept at theNanjingMuseum) is one of Chen's best free-style painting of flowers.

Xie Yi, or free-style, flower-and-bird paintings by Xu Wei and Chen Chun became quite fashionable and had a far-reaching significance in Chinese painting history. If previouslyGong BiHua(done with fine, delicate brushwork)flower-and-bird paintings in popularity, then after the emergence of Xu and Chen as prominent artists of the time, theXie Yistyle had absolute dominance. Qingteng and Baiyang set up spiritual examples for the paintings of modern times.