Page 404 - Chinese Art, Vol II By Stephen W. Bushell

140 CHINESE ART.

by no less than 126 pictures, about half of which were landscapes,
most of the rest being Buddhist, including among the latter groups
of the sixteen lohan, or arhats. Chang Tsao follows, the originator
of the thumbnail style of art, who boldly designed trees and rocks
with the stump of a brush, or with his finger, and excelled in forests
of misty pines and in awe-inspiring studies of frost and driving rain.
The landscape painters of the Sung dynasty were still more abun-
dantly represented ; Tung Yuan with seventy-eight pictures, Li
Ch'eng with 159, Fan K'uan with fifty-eight—the last two landscape
painters of the very first class, who have never, it is said, been
surpassed—Kuo Hsi with thirty pictures, the Buddhist monk Chii
Jan with 136, besides a galaxy of lesser lights. The long list closes
with the titles of three pictures by an unknown Japanese artist, one
of island mountain scenery, two of the manners and customs
of his own country.
7. Ch'u Shou, " Domestic Animals and Wild Beasts," Books
13 and 14.—Among the former, horses, oxen, goats, cats and dogs
occur most frequently, among the latter the tiger, panther and
wild boar, deer, roebuck, antelopes, fo.xes, hares and other animals
of the chase. Shih Tao-yeh of the Chin dynasty (4th century) is
the earliest painter of horses and oxen represented here Han Kan,
;
the famous court painter of horses in the eighth century, has over
fifty pictures of horses and horsemen, and Ts'ao Pa, the contemporary
and rival of Han Kan in this particular line, has fourteen pictures
of horses, which are said to have " washed away all the horses of
antiquity."
8. Hua Niao, " Flowers and Birds," Books 15-19.—Flying
insects are classed in this category with birds, so that it includes
dragonfiies, butterflies, and winged beetles, as well as cicadas, bees
and wasps. The Chinese artist is most successful in his lifelike
pictures of birds and flowers, but the list here is too long for analysis.
Hsieh Chi, the famous painter of cranes in the seventh century, may
be just alluded to, as seven of his crane pictures were in the emperor's