technologically advanced society in the world in the early second
millennium.
FAN KUANFor many observers, the Song dynasty also marks the
apogee of Chinese landscape painting, which first emerged as a major
subject during the Period of Disunity. Although many of the great
Northern Song masters worked for the imperial court,Fan Kuan(ca.
960–1030) was a Daoist recluse (see “Daoism and Confucianism,”
page 186) who shunned the cosmopolitan life of Bianliang. He be-
lieved nature was a better teacher than other artists, and he spent long
days in the mountains studying configurations of rocks and trees and
the effect of sunlight and moonlight on natural forms. Just as cen-
turies later Giorgio Vasari would credit Italian Renaissance painters
with the conquest of naturalism (see Chapter 21), so too did Song
critics laud Fan Kuan and other leading painters of the day as the first
masters of the recording of light, shade, distance, and texture. Yet the
comparison with 15th- and 16th-century Italy is misleading. Chinese
landscape painters such as Fan Kuan did not aim to produce portraits
of specific places. They did not seek to imitate or to reproduce nature.
Rather, they sought to capture the essence of nature and of its individ-
ual elements using brush and ink on silk. Their paintings are tributes
to nature, not representations of individual rock or tree formations.
In Travelers among Mountains and Streams (FIG. 7-1), datable
to the early 11th century, Fan Kuan painted a vertical landscape of
massive mountains rising from the distance. The overwhelming nat-
ural forms dwarf the few human and animal figures (for example,
the mule train in the lower right corner;FIG. 7-20), which the artist
reduced to minute proportions. The nearly seven-foot-long silk
hanging scroll cannot contain nature’s grandeur, and the landscape
7-20Fan Kuan,detail ofTr a v e l e r s
among Mountains and Streams(FIG.
7-1), Northern Song period, early 11th
century. Hanging scroll, ink and colors
on silk, entire scroll 6 71 – 4 3 41 – 4 ;
detail 2 101 – 4 high. National Palace
Museum, Taibei.
Fan Kuan, a Daoist recluse, spent long
days in the mountains studying the
effects of light on rock formations and
trees. He was one of the first masters
at recording light, shade, distance,
and texture.China 197continues in all directions beyond its borders. The painter showed
some elements from level ground (for example, the great boulder in
the foreground), and others obliquely from the top (the shrubbery
on the highest cliff ). The shifting perspectives lead the viewer on a
journey through the mountains. To appreciate the painted landscape
fully, the viewer must focus not only on the larger composition but
also on intricate details and on the character of each brush stroke.
Numerous “texture strokes” help model massive forms and convey a
sense of tactile surfaces. For the face of the mountain, for example,
Fan Kuan employed small, pale brush marks, the kind of texture
stroke the Chinese call “raindrop strokes.”
HUIZONGA century after Fan Kuan painted in the mountains of
Shanxi,Huizong(1082–1135; r. 1101–1126) assumed the Song
throne at Bianliang. Less interested in governing than in the arts, he
brought the country to near bankruptcy and lost much of China’s
territory to the armies of the Tartar Jin dynasty (1115–1234), who
captured the Song capital in 1126 and took Huizong prisoner. He
died in their hands nine years later. An accomplished poet, calligra-
pher, and painter, Huizong reorganized the imperial painting acad-
emy and required the study of poetry and calligraphy as part of the
official training of court painters.Calligraphy,or the art of writing,
was highly esteemed in China throughout its history, and prominent
inscriptions are frequent elements of Chinese paintings (see “Callig-
raphy and Inscriptions on Chinese Paintings,” Chapter 27, page 726).
Huizong also promoted the careful study both of nature and of the
classical art of earlier periods, and was an avid art collector as well as
the sponsor of a comprehensive catalogue of the vast imperial art
holdings.1 ft.