Landscape Painting in Yuan Dynasty

The painting theme in Yuan dynasty was different from that of previous dynasties.Paintings of noble’s outing life were taken place by paintings of literati’s hermitical life.Painters lived in different corners of the country and had no desire to be officials for the government.Some even expressed in their paintings their unwillingness to cooperate with the court.Some just painted fon entertainment and expressing one’s emotion and sentiment.For some painters who chose to serve the court also preferred to paint landscapes for spiritual comfort.

In terms of painting skills，landscape painters in this period mainly used water and ink to paint on rice paper with strong absorption rather than silk fabrics such as thin silk.And the sketch and tincture technique gave their place to the sketch with light strokes，applying color with water ink either heavy or light，either dry or moist.The change of painting techniques also brought forward change and enrichment of style and artistic conception.

The Four Greatest Painters in Yuan dynasty include Huang Gongwang（1269-1354），Wu Zhen（1280-1354），Wang Meng（？-1385），Ni Zan（1301-1374）.They were all outstanding in landscape painting.They mainly followed Dong Yuan and Ju Ran’s Other than the four greatest painters in Yuan dynasty，well known landscape painters also include Qian Xuan，Zhao Mengfu.Gao Kegong，Shang Qi，Sheng Mao，Fang Congyi，Tang Di，Zhu Deirun and Cao Zhibai.

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