Page 187 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

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When, after the disaster of 1 125, the Sung shored up the ruins of LI T'ANG
their house amid the delights of their "temporary" capital at
Hangchow, they set out to recapture the dignity and splendour of
the old life at Kaifeng. At Wu-lin outside the city, a formal Acad-
emy of Painting, Hua-yiian, was set up, for the first and only time
in Chinese history. Venerable masters from the north were assem-
bled there to reestablish the tradition of court painting, and no na-
tional catastrophe, it seemed— provided that it was ignored
could disturb the even tenor of their life and art. The classic north-
ern tradition was transformed and transmitted to the Southern
Sung by Li Tang, doyen of Hui-tsung's academy. History credits
Li T'ang with a monumental style based on the fu-p'i ts'un ("axe-
cut texture stroke"), a graphic description of his method of as it
were hacking out the angular facets of his rocks with the side of
the brush. A powerful landscape in this technique in the Palace
Museum, Taipei, signed and dated equivalent to 11 24, may be a
later copy, and it is likely that no original from his hand survives
today. Perhaps the little fan painting, A Myriad Trees on Strange
Peaks, brings us as close to his style as we shall ever get. He was an
old man when Kaifeng fell, and most of his work must have per-
1 97 Attributed to Chao Po-chii ( 1 1 20-
ished with the imperial collection. But copies, attributed paint-
1182). Rtxky Mountains along a River in
ings, and literary sources suggest that his style and influence were Autumn. Detail of ahandscroll. Ink and
mineral colour on silk. Southern Sung
dominant in the twelfth century, making him a vital link between
Dynasty.

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