30 THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART 



in the time of the Ming dynasty, when conventionalism had full sway, 

 resulting in the loss of spiritual expression, the life and soul of Chinese 

 landscape art. The landscape productions of Ma Yiian, Hsia Kuei, Liang 

 K'ai, and Yu Chien have given invaluable lessons to Japanese painters, 

 who, while they modified to a greater or less extent their styles, at bottom 

 owed their accomplishments to these illustrious Chinese painters. 



Commenting on Liang K'ai the ' T'u-hui-pao-chien ' (A Compendium of 

 Chinese Paintings) remarks that he handled mostly human figiires (pre- 

 eminently sages and savants) and landscapes, and only now and then birds 

 and flowers. He first studied under Ku Shih-ku, but in the end out- 

 stripped his master. Liang K'ai distinguished himself by purity and 

 strength of touch, and in economy of strokes. The Kokka. 



LIN LIANG. Ming Dynasty. 



Lin Liang was a native of Kuangtung who became eminent as a painter 

 of flowers, fruit, birds, trees, etc. He is said to have been a very rapid 

 worker, using his brush as though he were writing the "grass character, " 

 beyond compare in his own day. Herbert A . Giles. 



LI SSC-HSUN. T'ang Dynasty. 



" Under the Tang dynasty painting was for the first time divided into 

 Northern and Southern schools. The former was founded by Li Ssu-hsiin 

 and his son, who painted their landscapes in brilliant colours, and whose 

 tradition was carried on by Chao Kan, Chao Po, Chii Po-hsiao, of the Sung 

 dynasty, down to Ma-yiian, Hsia Kuei, and others." 



About the year 745, Li was ordered to paint a door screen for the Emperor 

 Ming Huang. A few days after its completion, the Emperor said to him, 

 " Your skill is more than mortal; at night I can hear the plash of the water 

 in your picture. " This is perhaps a sufficient testimonial. But in his day 

 there was a perfect craze for pictures by "the General," and legend soon 

 became busy with his name. " On one occasion he was painting a fish, and 

 had completed his work, all save the usual surrotmdings of river plants. 

 Just then some one knocked at the door, and he stepped out to see who it 

 was. On his return the picture was gone; and it was subsequently fotmd 

 by a servant in a pond whither it had been blown by a gust of wind. The 

 fish, however, had disappeared, leaving only a blank piece of paper. Then 

 for a joke he painted several fishes and threw them into the pond; but 

 although the picture remained in the water all night, the fishes did not 

 manage to get away." Herbert A. Giles. 



Li Ssi-sun, a relation of the Imperial house of the T'ang Dynasty, who, 

 like several other members of his family, excelled in landscape painting, 

 was born in A. D. 651 and died in 716, according to some in 720. In 713 he 

 had been appointed field-marshal (ta-tsiang-kun), for which reason his 

 pictures are spoken of as " Marshal Li 's Landscapes. ' ' He was looked upon 

 as the best landscapist of the period, his reputation being chiefly due to 



