Zhan Ziqian (; c. mid to late 6th century)Barnhart: Page 371. was a famous

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

of ancient

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

from Yangxin County in modern-day

Shandong Shandong ( , ; ; alternately romanized as Shantung) is a coastal province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the East China region. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilizati ...

province. His birth and death dates are unknown. It is known that in the

Sui dynasty The Sui dynasty (, ) was a short-lived imperial dynasty of China that lasted from 581 to 618. The Sui unified the Northern and Southern dynasties, thus ending the long period of division following the fall of the Western Jin dynasty, and layi ...

(581–618) he was appointed to the office of Chaosan Dafu () and later of Zhangnei Dudu ().CiHai: Page 1075. According to the historical documents, Zhan Ziquan painted a number of genres and religion paintings which have not survived. He was especially noted for his paintings of pavilions and people, and horses. His paintings of people were particularly lifelike. The only painting by him that survives today is ''Strolling About in Spring'', which is a perspective arrangement of mountains. It has been cited as the earliest surviving work of Chinese landscape painting or the first ''

shan shui ''Shan shui'' (; pronounced ) refers to a style of traditional Chinese painting that involves or depicts scenery or natural landscapes, using a brush and ink rather than more conventional paints. Mountains, rivers and waterfalls are common s ...

'' painting.

Notes

References

*Barnhart, R. M. et al. (1997). Three thousand years of Chinese painting. New Haven, Yale University Press. *Ci hai bian ji wei yuan hui (). Ci hai (). Shanghai: Shanghai ci shu chu ban she (), 1979. Sui dynasty painters Sui dynasty politicians Politicians from Binzhou Painters from Shandong {{China-painter-stub