Fan Zhongzheng (c. 960 – c. 1030),
courtesy name
A courtesy name (), also known as a style name, is a name bestowed upon one at adulthood in addition to one's given name. This practice is a tradition in the East Asian cultural sphere, including China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.Ulrich Theobald ...
Zhongli, better known by his pseudonym Fan Kuan (), was a Chinese
landscape painter of the
Song dynasty
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...
.
''Travelers among Mountains and Streams'', a large
hanging scroll
A hanging scroll is one of the many traditional ways to display and exhibit East Asian painting and calligraphy. The hanging scroll was displayed in a room for appreciation; it is to be distinguished from the handscroll, which was narrower and ...
, is Fan Kuan's best known work and a seminal painting of the Northern Song school. It establishes an ideal in monumental landscape painting to which later painters were to return time and again for inspiration. The classic Chinese perspective of three planes is evident - near, middle (represented by water and mist), and far. Unlike earlier examples of Chinese landscape art, the grandeur of nature is the main theme, rather than merely providing a backdrop.
A packhorse train can barely be seen emerging from a wood at the base of a towering precipice. The painting's style encompasses archaic conventions dating back to the
Tang Dynasty
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...
.
[Sullivan, ''The Arts of China'', 180.]
The historian
Patricia Ebrey
Patricia Buckley Ebrey (born March 7, 1947) is an American historian specializing in cultural and gender issues during the Chinese Song Dynasty. Ebrey obtained her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Chicago in 1968 and her Masters and PhD fro ...
explains her view on the painting that the:
...foreground, presented at eye level, is executed in crisp, well-defined brush strokes. Jutting boulders, tough scrub trees, a mule train on the road, and a temple in the forest on the cliff are all vividly depicted. There is a suitable break between the foreground and the towering central peak behind, which is treated as if it were a backdrop, suspended and fitted into a slot behind the foreground. There are human figures in this scene, but it is easy to imagine them overpowered by the magnitude and mystery of their surroundings.[Ebrey, ''Cambridge Illustrated History of China'', 162–163.]
Fan's masterpiece ''Travellers among Mountains and Streams'' bears a lost half-hidden signature rediscovered only in 1958.
See also
*
Culture of the Song Dynasty
*
Chinese Painting
Chinese painting () is one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. Painting in the traditional style is known today in Chinese as ''guó huà'' (), meaning "national painting" or "native painting", as opposed to Western style ...
*
Chinese art
*
History of Chinese art
Notes
References
*Liu, Pingheng (1989). Shui mo yin yun, qi yun sheng dong de Zhongguo hui hua (水墨絪縕, 氣韻生動的中國繪畫) = Misty and Lively Chinese Painting. Taibei Shi: Guo li li shi bo wu guan ().
*Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. ''The Cambridge Illustrated History of China''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
External links
Painting Gallery of Fan Kuanat China Online Museum
Other paintings by Fan Kuan at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston*
ttp://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15324coll10/id/88271/rec/1 Landscapes Clear and Radiant: The Art of Wang Hui (1632-1717) an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Fan Kuan (see index)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fan, Kuan
Year of birth unknown
Date of death unknown
Song dynasty landscape painters
People from Tongchuan
Painters from Shaanxi
10th-century Chinese painters
11th-century Chinese painters
Year of birth uncertain