100 Most Beautiful Chinese Paintings IV

Song Dynasty is a period when Chinese ancient paintings are highly prosperous. A variety of painting techniques and themes tended to become mature during that period. According to modern Chinese painting classifications based on three major painting objects, namely landscapes, figures, flowers and birds, have developed into independent painting branches and reached a high level in Song Dynasty. Landscape paintings carried on from Tang to Song Dynasties. After Jing Hao, Dong Yuan and other pioneers of painting styles, there emerged masters with distinctive styles in Northern Song Dynasty such as Li Cheng, Fan Kuan and Guo Xi. To the Southern Song Dynasty, landscape painting style had changed from magnificent panoramic images into paintings with fresh and beautiful corner-type point of view. Flower and bird paintings also achieved an unprecedented development. Court flower and bird paintings created according to needs and interests of court decoration and royal aristocracy appreciation were very beautiful and subtle; system of wild style ink paintings of flower and bird which was quite different from court style had initially formed. The paintings of Taoism figures were no longer as grand as that in Tang and Song Dynasty, and they gradually declined. However, paintings depicting secular life such playing children and festivals gradually rose up with the booming of townspeople’s demands; paintings of historical figures with political advice and allegory function were also quite developed and hard to be surpassed by later generations. No matter what kind of theme or style, paintings in Song Dynasty were rigorous and realistic, reflecting Song people’s cognitive concept and spirit of “exploring the rule of matters”.



Differences between professional painters and literati artists began to emerge in Song Dynasty. Literati paintings initially established a systematic standard reflecting image and taste of literati. Till Yuan Dynasty, after a long-term accumulation and as a result of political exclusion due to foreign domination and relative freedom of thought, literati paintings began to develop fast with migrants from Southern Song Dynasty and literati out of office as the main creation groups. They caught up from behind and became the most important achievement of painting field in Yuan Dynasty. Even literati paintings in Ming and Qing Dynasties when they became the mainstream art could not go beyond it.

Fan Kuan



On most of the extant works of great masters in the early history of Chinese painting, there are still doubts in terms of the original creator and the time when the work was done. This painting, however, has been unanimously recognized as a genuine work by Fan Kuan, thanks to the sense of magnificence which is a unique feature of the early Song paintings, more importantly, the sound proof, an ingeniously hidden signature formed by seemingly scattering leafs in the woods behind the caravan in the lower right corner of the painting. Viewers need to observe very carefully so as to recognize the two characters of Fan Kuan.

The Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) witnessed the heyday of the landscape painting. Guo Xi (ca. 1000-1080), a court painter during the reign of Emperor Shenzong (1068-1085), was an exceptional representative of his period in terms of both theory and skills of the landscape painting. The special perspective techniques of creating “tall, deep and flat distances” proposed by Guo exerted a great influence on the landscape painting of later generations.

李公麟技法全面，人物、鞍馬、花鳥、山水，無一不精，尤其是鞍馬畫的水準甚至可與該畫種最頂峰時期的唐代相媲美。



《五馬圖》是李公麟鞍馬畫代表作，該卷共分五段，每段畫一匹西域進貢的名馬，並由一名奚官或圉人（專職養馬的人）牽引。李公麟僅用最樸素的單線白描，便將人物、馬匹塑造得神完氣足、個性鮮明，尤其是馬匹，雖不是賓士騰踏的動態，仍令人感受到駿馬勃發的生命活力。





《五馬圖》每段上還有同時代著名詩人、文學家黃庭堅的題跋，記錄了馬名、來源、身長等信息，和李公麟精彩絕倫的畫跡，共同體現了宋人格物治理的精神。

During Southern and Northern Song dynasties, Chinese ancient paintings achieved unprecedented development and had made significant accomplishments. In early Northern Song Dynasty, the loyal court painter Huang Jucai inherited his father Huang Quan’s painting style of flowers and birds, making exquisite and gorgeous style become the criterion to judge loyal court flower and bird paintings, until the emergence of painters like Cui Bai who broke the dominant position of such criterion. Both Cui Bai and Huang Quan focused on accuracy of sketching and modeling, but Cui Bai added a bit more life joy to the painting. It was such concern about birds’ expression that brought flower and bird paintings into a new stage of development.

Children at play, a subject affiliated to the genre painting, prevailed during the Northern and Southern dynasties (960-1279).This work is believed to be created by Su Hanchen, Painter-in-Attendance serving the Imperial Painting Academy during the reign of Emperor Huizong (1082-1135).



Su was good at illustrating Buddhist and Taoist figures, especially infants and toddlers. This work shows a scene of a little sister and her brother, playing a game called spinning dates on a round stool in the courtyard during the autumn.

An ornamental Taihu rock shape erects in the background, surrounded by hibiscus, chrysanthemums, plums, and camellias, all of which are autumn flowers. On the ground and the other black-lacquered stool nearby are fine toys such as a game board, a miniature pagoda and a pair of cymbals. This painting not only reflects the customs of the Song Dynasty, but also tries to raise the awareness of modesty and humility.

A drunken immortal with a tottering step and a charmingly naïve countenance was depicted in this work by the artist with flowing strokes and well-splashed ink. It seems that the painter himself must have improvised this works after drinking wine so that he managed to create a vivid deity with an unusual appearance and funny looks by using just several strokes.

Lohan (Buddhist ascetics), also called Arhat, is the transliteration of the word of same meaning in Sanskrit. The lohan in this painting, with long, bushy eyebrows and a prominent nose, wears a cassock tied around his left shoulder and a pair of straw sandals, looking like an Indian monk based on either appearance or dressing. He leans on a horizontal tree branch with forearms crossed, contemplating in a frown, as if in deep thought.

This picture is just one part of Huang Gongwang’s masterpiece scroll painting “The Scenery of Fuchun River crosses Our Hometown Tonglu County”. Huang Gongwang was one of the “four famous painters in Yuan Dynasty”. After the creation of “The Scenery of Fuchun River crosses Our Hometown Tonglu County”, collectors all took it as a treasure. In Qing Dynasty, collector Wu Hongyu loved the painting so much that even wanted to take it to his afterlife when he was dying. It was said that when he burned the painting, his families were really reluctant to damage the treasure and saved it from the fire, but the painting was still burned into two sections. The small section is now known as the “Leftover Mountain” volume and is collected in the Museum of Zhejiang province. 



This painting is the large section, also known as “Painting by Wu Yongshi”. This work was completed by Huang Gongwang at the age of seventy-nine for his friend Zheng Chu who was a Taoist. The painting depicts Fuchun River scenery in Zhejiang province. It was said that Huang Gongwang started learning painting very late, but he was quite talented and loved sketching painting very much.

Wang Meng



Wang Meng served as a small official in late Yuan Dynasty. He then resigned and lived in seclusion for quite a long period of time. At the beginning of Ming Dynasty, he served as a provincial official for a while, but at last died in jail because of political implications.



Wang Meng's works had very full composition, with hills and mountains often taking over the whole painting; the layout was also very complex, with mountains after mountains, water over water, layers upon layers. He was good at using unfolding texture (a painting skill) and ink points to make the mountains look lush, presenting audiences a vast view.

Ni Zan



This painting was created by Ni Zan, one of the “four famous painters in Yuan Dynasty”. Ni Zan was the most characterized one among the “four famous painters in Yuan Dynasty”. It was said that Ni Zan had a withdrawn character and was hyper-neat. His family was once a big landlord and his ancestors were good at accumulating fortune, but Ni Zan did not care about fortune. He spent all day long with monks or visiting friends and admiring paintings. At the end of Yuan Dynasty when the society was quite unrest, he even sold out all his properties, dismissed all the servants, and traveled widely. At last, people even did not know where he died. Ni Zan's paintings were just his strong personal expressions. His opposed to subjective enthusiasm and imitation, but advocated “leisurely drawing” and “just to entertain oneself”. His painting always gives audiences a kind of desolate and distant feeling, very simple and calm, just like his inner pursue for ultimate cleanness.