Ruan Gao left almost no biography and one extraordinary picture. His handscroll Immortal Ladies of the Penglai Court is a rare survival of Daoist figure pa…
Immortal Ladies of the Penglai Court (阮郜阆苑女仙图卷) Read More »
Zhou Wenju painted the men who ran a fallen court, caught between poetry and anxiety. His scroll Literary Gathering shows scholars at their favourite activ…
Literary Gathering (周文矩文苑图卷) Read More »
Most surviving Tang and Five Dynasties figure painting shows courtiers. Hu Gui pointed his brush the other way, at the nomads on the steppe, and gave them…
Nomads at Rest (胡瓌卓歇图卷) Read More »
Yang Wujiu took one flower and four states of it and made a whole argument about restraint. His handscroll Four Plum Blossoms is the ink plum painting at i…
Four Plum Blossoms (扬无咎四梅花图卷) Read More »
The most gifted artist to sit on a Chinese throne also lost the most. Emperor Huizong painted Auspicious Dragon Rock, and the rock he admired outlived his…
Auspicious Dragon Rock (赵佶祥龙石图卷) Read More »
Guo Xi wrote the book on landscape and then painted the proof. His hanging scroll Tree, Rocks and Distant Mountains is a single calm statement of a theory…
Tree, Rocks and Distant Mountains (郭熙窠石平远图轴) Read More »
Wang Shen was a Song prince by marriage and an artist by temperament. His scroll Fishing Village in Light Snow is what happens when a man with a court educ…
Fishing Village in Light Snow (王诜渔村小雪图卷) Read More »
Song dynasty painters trusted their eyes. Zhao Chang is the name most often attached to that faith. His handscroll Butterflies from Life is a small, exact…
Butterflies from Life (赵昌写生蛱蝶图卷) Read More »
Before there was a Southern School of Chinese landscape, there was Dong Yuan. His scroll Xiao and Xiang Rivers is one of the works that started it. Everyth…
Xiao and Xiang Rivers (董源潇湘图卷) Read More »
A Tang dynasty court painter left us one of the clearest windows we have into the lives of aristocratic women more than a thousand years ago. Zhou Fang pai…
Court Ladies Waving Fans (周昉挥扇仕女图卷) Read More »
