CATALOGUE OF FREER COLLECTION 37 



to judge from the woodcuts which have come down to us, consisted of two 

 discs with fifty animals on each, all in various positions, no two alike, and 

 must have been a very beautiful work. There is also a pictiu-e of " Prince 

 Ning Training Horses for Polo," a game which is said to have been intro- 

 duced some centuries earlier by the Turkish and Tungusic emperors of 

 China. 



Another of his pictiu'es had for its title "Yellow Horse sent as Tribute 

 from Khoten" — a high-stepping and martial-looking animal. 



"It has been handed down by tradition that whenever he painted a 

 horse, Han Kan paid great attention to the season and the weather (in the 

 pictiure), and to the angle and position of the animal, before he settled the 

 structural anatomy and the colour of the hair. This was doubtless because 

 the horse is classed under the element fire and has its corresponding sta- 

 tion in the south; so that whether the colour was bluish gray, or black, or 

 dappled, or white, it was always laid on in conformity with cyclical require- 

 ments, and with such splendid results. His success was also partly attribu- 

 table to the fact that he obtained first-class horses as his subjects." 



What his contemporaries thought of his art may be seen in the eulogistic 

 lines where Tu Fu, the poet, describes one of his horses as "whiter than 

 driven snow, its hoofs clattering with the tliunder of hail, meet steed only 

 for the skilled horseman, a veritable go-between of dragons." 



The "Hiian ho hua p'u" gives the titles of fifty-two of his pictures, all 

 connected with horses and hunting, in the Imperial collection (twelfth 

 century'). Herbert A. Giles. 



HSIA KUEI. Sung Dynasty. Twelfth Century. 



Hsia Kuei (Japanese Ka-kei) was a native of Ch'ien-t'ang, and served in 

 the Han-lin College under the Emperor Ning Tsung (i 194-1224), being 

 decorated with the order of the Golden Girdle. " He painted human figures 

 of all sorts and conditions. His monochromes seemed to be colored; his 

 brushwork was virile; and his ink was as though dripped on — truly very 

 wonderful. For his snow scenery he went to the works of Fan K'uan; and 

 in landscape no academician since Li T'ang has come out on his right 

 hand. ' ' Herbert A . Giles. 



CHAO TZO-YUN. Sung Dynasty. Twelfth Century. 



Chao Tzii-yQn is disposed of almost in a line. " He could produce a pic- 

 ture by a single brush stroke. In painting faces and hands, he was careful 

 enough, but would dispose of draperies as if he were a calligraphist, by one 

 stroke." He must have flourished about A. D. 1150. Herbert A. Giles. 



