Scholar on a balcony overlooking a river

Chinese artists were the first to depict
landscapes as the main subjects of their
paintings.
This painting is in the style of Xu Daoning,
a Chinese painter of the Northern Song
dynasty (AD 907–1127). The black ink is
diluted thinly in places to show the delicate
features of the land and water.
In Japan, Chinese-style landscape
paintings first became popular about
600 years ago.