CATALOGUE OF FREER COLLECTION 29 



devout Buddhist, who on two occasions actually adopted priestly garb, 

 and had all his sacrificial victims made of dough to avoid taking life, engaged 

 Chang to paint pictures for a temple he had just built. He also commis- 

 sioned him to paint the portraits of the Princes, who were all away from 

 home, the result being a set of likenesses "exactly like the originals." 



For the temple at Nanking to the Supreme Being, founded by the Em- 

 peror himself, Chang painted a Buddhist picture into which he introduced 

 Confucius and the Ten Sages of old. The astonished Emperor asked what 

 he meant by this; to which Chang replied, "Some day men will look to 

 these for aid. " This ambiguous saying was held to be fulfilled when, under 

 the second Emperor of the later Chou dynasty, in the first half of the tenth 

 centiuy, there was a general spoliation of Buddhist temples, but this one 

 was spared because of the presence of Confucius within its walls. 



In another temple at Chinkiang the priests were much annoyed by the 

 pigeons among the beams. Chang soon put an end to this by painting a 

 falcon on the east wall and a kite on the west wall, which effectually fright- 

 ened the pigeons away. Herbert A. Giles. 



MA YOAN. Sung Dynasty, Twelfth Century. 



Ma Yiian (Japanese Ba-yen) flourished as a court painter between 1190 

 and 1224. "In landscape, human figures, flowers, and birds, he was very 

 successful, and stood first of the Academicians. " He had an elder brother, 

 Ma K'uei, which name Anderson misreads Ma Tah (Japanese Ba-tatsu), who 

 excelled him in painting birds, but "in other subjects did not come up 

 to him;" and also a son. Ma Lin, who " was able to carry on the family tra- 

 dition, but was a long way behind his father. ' ' Herbert A . Giles. 



LIANG K'AI. Sung Dynasty. 



Liang K'ai was, along with Ma Yiian and Hsia Kuei, a great master of art 

 in the days of the Sung djmasty. The artist Liang K'ai was known for his 

 masterly handling of both landscape and portrait subjects, especially the 

 latter. He was appointed an honorary member of the Royal Art Institute 

 and was decorated with the Chin-tai (Tlie Golden Belt) which he, however, 

 never wore but left hung up in the Institute. While his contemporaries 

 struggled for official honours and personal emolument, he alone rose above 

 these marks of worldly distinction, and lived happy and contented in his 

 self-sought obsciu-ity. In nobility of sentiment, vigotu- of touch, simplicity 

 and freedom of treatment, Liang K'ai has hardly been approached. 



The superiority of Chinese landscape art lies in representing a scene of 

 impressive magnitude in such a manner that the beholder may read in it 

 lines of hidden thought. Chinese landscapists have striven to impart 

 besides the above quality a tone of calmness and solitude, such a tendency 

 being especially noticeable in the productions of the South-Sang dynasty. 

 In the Yiian dynasty this tendency became even more pronounced, with 

 the result that sometimes the tone became too rigidly pensive and devoid 

 of the compensating quality of pleasant ease. The matter grew still worse 



