Shen Zhou 沈周 1427-1509 明朝 Chinese
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沈周（1427年－1509年）字啟南、號石田、白石翁、玉田生、有竹居主人等，明朝畫家，吳門畫派的創始人，明四家之一，長洲（今江蘇蘇州）人。
沈家世代隱居吳門，居蘇州相城。沈周的曾祖父是王蒙的好友，父親沈恆吉又是杜瓊的學生，書畫乃家學淵源。父親、伯父都以詩文書畫聞名鄉里。
沈周一生家居讀書，吟詩作畫，優遊林泉，追求精神上自由，蔑視惡濁的政治，一生未應科舉，始終從事書畫創作。他學識淵博，富於收藏，交遊甚廣，極受眾望，平時平和近人，要書求畫者「屨滿戶外」，「販夫牧豎」向他求畫，從不拒絕。甚至有人作他的贗品，求為題款，他也欣然應允。有曹太守其人，新屋落成，欲搜羅畫家，沈周亦在其中，沈周曰：「毋驚老母，旦夕往畫不敢後」客人頗不平，曰：「太守不知先生，何賤先生於此？渴貴游可勿往。」沈周答曰：「往役義也，豈有賤哉？謁而求免，乃賤耳。」
沈周的書畫流傳很廣，真偽混雜，較難分辨。文徵明因此稱他為飄然世外的「神仙中人」。
沈周在元明以來文人畫領域有承前啟後的作用。他書法師黃庭堅，繪畫造詣尤深，兼工山水、花鳥，也能畫人物，以山水和花鳥成就突出。所作山水畫，有的是描寫高山大川，表現傳統山水畫的三遠之景。而大多數作品則是描寫南方山水及園林景物，表現了當時文人生活的幽閒意趣。
在繪畫方法上，沈周早年承受家學，兼師杜瓊。後來博取眾長，出入於宋元各家，主要繼承董源、巨然以及元四家黃公望、王蒙，吳鎮的水墨淺絳體系。又參以南宋李、劉、馬、夏勁健的筆墨，融會貫通，剛柔並用，形成粗筆水墨的新風格，自成一家。沈周早年多作小幅，40歲以後始拓大幅，中年畫法嚴謹細秀，用筆沉着勁練，以骨力勝，晚歲筆墨粗簡豪放，氣勢雄強。
沈周的繪畫，技藝全面，功力渾樸，在師法宋元的基礎上有自己的創造，發展了文人水墨寫意山水、花鳥畫的表現技法，成為吳門畫派的領袖。
沈周的代表作品現在多藏於大博物館，故宮博物院藏有精美作品，重要的有
Shen Zhou (Chinese: 沈周; pinyin: Shun Zhou, 1427–1509), courtesy name Qi'nan (启南) and Shitian (石田), was a Chinese painter in the Ming dynasty.
Shen Zhou was born into a wealthy family in Xiangcheng, near the thriving city of Suzhou, in the Jiangsu province, China. His genealogy traces his family's wealth to the late Yuan period, but only as far as Shen's paternal great-grandfather, Shen Liang-ch’en, who became a wealthy landowner following the dissolution of Mongol rule. After the collapse of the Yuan and the emergence of the new Ming dynasty, the position of tax collector was assigned to the head of the Shen family, under the Hongwu emperor's new lijia system. This steadily and amply increased the family's wealth, while freeing Shen Liang-ch’en's male descendants from obligatory careers as Ming officials, and allowing them to live the majority of their lives as retired scholar-artists. Upon the death of his father, Shen Heng-chi, Shen Zhou decided to forgo official examinations and devote his life to the care of his widowed mother, Chang Su-wan. It is probable that he never intended to become an official, but refrained from making this obvious until his father had died. He thus renounced the life of official service while still preserving his reputation in an enduring act of filial piety. In this way, he was able to live a reclusive life, free of responsibility (except that of caring for his mother), and devote his time to artwork, socializing, and monastic contemplation of the natural world around him.
Shen Zhou lived at a pivotal point in the history of Chinese painting, and contributed greatly to the artistic tradition of China, founding the new Wu School in Suzhou. Under the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368), painters had practiced with relative freedom, cultivating a more “individualist,” innovative approach to art that deviated noticeably from the more superficial style of the Song masters who preceded them. However, at the outset of the Ming, the Hongwu emperor (reg 1368-1398) decided to import the existing master painters to his court in Nanjing, where he had the ability to cultivate their styles to conform to the paintings of the Song masters. As Hongwu was notorious for his attempts to marginalize and persecute the scholar class, this was seen as an attempt to banish the gentry’s influence from the arts. The dominant style of the Ming court painters was called the Zhe School. However, following the ascension of the Yongle emperor (reg 1403-1424), the capital was moved from Nanjing to Beijing, putting a large distance between imperial influence and the city of Suzhou. These new conditions led to the rise of the Wu School of painting, a somewhat subversive style that revived the ideal of the inspired scholar-painter in Ming China.