Brief Biography-Xia Chang, a bamboo painter, was born in Kunshan in 1388. He was an early Ming scholar-official painter in the Yuan tradition. The Hanlin academy admitted him in 1415, and he eventually was called to Beijing, where he held high ranking positions until 1457. Xia Chang was one of many scholar painters regarded as a literati or wenrenhua painter. They were more interested in expression than the visual impact of a painting. It was a style devised by Dong Qichang, who established the Southern and Northern Schools. Literati painting was preferable to professional works by some scholars, which concentrated mainly on aesthetic viewpoints.