Page 212 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

iji TangTi. (1196-1)40). Fishermen
Returning through a Wintry Forest.
Hinging scroll Ink and colour on silk.
Yiun Dynasty.
sions arc made to the viewer; no figures, no boats or clouds enliven
the scene, and nothing moves. The silence that pervades the pic-
ture is that which falls between friends who understand each other
perfectly. The innumerable imitations of his style produced by
later artists show clearly how much strength is hidden in his appar-
ent weakness, how much skill in his fumbling with the brush,
what richness of content in his emptiness.
A very different type of artist was Wang Meng. He had held of-
fice under the Mongols, served as a magistrate after the Ming res-
toration, and died in prison in 1385. He was a master of a close-
knit texture made up of tortuous, writhing lines and a rich variety
of ts'un; but though he seems to leave nothing out, his touch is sen-
sitive and his composition clear-cut. He is one of the few Chinese
painters—Shih-ch'i is perhaps another—who, though using a
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