First-class snark from the Ming dynasty

From the painting critic Li Kaixian, writing in 1545:

Jiang Zicheng's painting is "like an Indian monk, his entire body clothed in precious objects, yet giving off a putrid odor."

Lin Liang is "like the sticks on a woodgatherer's back or the dried wood at the bottom of a stream - carpenters wouldn't even look at it."

Guo Xu "is like an old Confucian trying to learn farming: his strength is not equal to his fellows' and he grows more weeds than grain."

Wang E "is like an official of the Five Dynasties: his hat is of black silk but his person is that of a butcher."

Bonus, from He Liangjun, writing about twenty-five years later: "As for the likes of... Zhang Lu of the North, I would be ashamed to wipe my table with his paintings."

H/T: Richard Barnhart, "The 'Wild and Heterodox' School of Ming Painting," in Susan Bush and Christian Murck, eds., Theories of the Arts in China, Princeton University Press, 1983.