Page 391 - Chinese Art, Vol II By Stephen W. Bushell

PICTORIAL ART. 133

fold. The northern school maintained all the traditions of the
academic style and required of the painters the most finished
technical mastership of the brush. The southern school, on the
contrary, left more independence and fancy to the inspiration of
the artist, it permitted more freedom of work, a less strict observ-
ance of classical rules, perhaps even a certain tendency towards
naturalism. Wang Wei. one of the most distinguished ex-
ponents of the southern school, by his writings on landscape paint-
ing, as well as by his actual work with the brush, founded a new
style which threw over many of the old formal rules and perfected
its methods by direct insj)iration from nature. Many of his pupils
have been natives of Ch'eng-tu, the capital of Ssuch'uan, a pro-
vince where nature is manifested in its grandest forms, framed in
mountain ranges alive with torrents and waterfalls, worthy of the
highest efforts of the landscape painter.

3. Period of Development and Decline, a.d. 960-1643.

The short-lived five dynasties which succeeded the T'ang, al-
though distinguished by a number of painters, one of whom, Huang
Ch'iian (loth century), is represented in the British Museum by two
pictures on silk of fowls and peonies (Nos. 4, 5-'8i), may be passed
over here to proceed at once to the Sung dynasty. The Sung
dynasty entered in 960 upon some three hundred years of literary
and artistic glory, and has a long record of painters, extending to
over eight hundred names, in the encycloptedia. It never, however,
ruled the whole of China, but was gradually forced southwards by
the encroachments of the Tartar races, one of which, the Mongol,
was destined to supplant it finally in the year 1280. The capital,
first established at K'ai-feng-fu in Honan, was moved to Hang-
chou-fu in 1129, after which date the latter place, the Kingsai of
Marco Polo, became the greatest art centre in China. When the
Mongols were driven out in 1368, the first Ming emperor had his
S941. 2x1