34 THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART 



CHAO LING-JANG. Sung Dynasty. 



Chao Ling-jang, better known as Chao Ta-nien, was an Imperial clans- 

 man of the House of Sung, a fact which he considered as an obstacle to his 

 unqualified success in art. However, he managed to secure a good educa- 

 tion before he turned to painting, and then devoted himself to copying the 

 great masters of the Chin and Tang dynasties, especially the works of 

 Wang Wei, Li Ssii-hsun, Pi Himg, and Wei Yen, whose originals, in the two 

 last-mentioned cases, he is said to have sxuTJassed before many months had 

 gone by. The exquisite poetry of Tu Fu is also quoted as another source 

 of his inspiration. Although he never traveled far afield, finding his land- 

 scapes in the country around the capital within a radius of less than a hun- 

 dred miles, his pictures were siu"e to contain some new impression, some 

 striking treatment. Many of his landscapes were painted on fans, at the 

 back of which the Emperor Che Tstmg, 1085-1100, would inscribe appropri- 

 ate lines. When he became famous, the demands made upon him were so 

 exhausting that he cried in despair, "This is to be a slave to art!" 



Mi Yiian-chang wrote: " Ta-nien 's pictures are pure and beautiful; his 

 eyots and his water fowl are pregnant with expression of river and lake. 

 When in the capital I obtained a horizontal scroll-picture of his, entitled 

 ' Home Again. ' The bamboo fence, the rush hut, the mist-enveloped grove, 

 distant hills and streams — a thousand li in a foot of space — sedge and bul- 

 rush, egret and gull — a perfect riverine scene painted with loving skill." 



Among minor artists of the period we read of one who was the fifth in 

 descent from father to son, a good instance of heredity ; of another who wrote 

 from a distance : 



I paint the old hills round my home every day, 

 Lest my soul should forget them, now far, far away. 



Herbert A . Giles. 



WANG YUAN. Yuan Dynasty. 



In 1329 a minor painter, named Wang Yiian, had to paint the figure of a 

 demon on a temple wall over 30 feet in height. He began by submitting a 

 sketch which he had painted on a number of sheets pasted together, but it 

 was found that the arms and legs of the demon were an>i;hing but anatomi- 

 cally correct. " If you will deign to take instruction from an inferior, ' ' said 

 the managing director (quoting Confucius), "I would advise you first to 

 take your measurements and then draw a nude figure. You can clothe it 

 afterwards." Herbert A. Giles. 



WANG M£NG. Yiian Dynasty. 



Wang M^ng, sometimes called Yellow Crane, was a grandson of Chao 

 Mfeng-fu on the maternal side. He loved painting and acquired the method 

 of his grandfather. But he did not lay himself out to please his generation; 

 he merely painted as a means of expressing the genius that was latent in 

 him. It was the same with his literary compositions; he placed himself 



