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Biography of Ma YüanName: Ma YüanBirth Date: N/A Death Date: N/A Place of Birth: Ch'ien-t'ang, China Nationality: Chinese Gender: Male Occupations: painter Ma Yüan Ma Yüan (active ca. 1190-ca. 1229) was a Chinese painter. With Hsia Kuei, he was one of the creators of the Ma-Hsia school of landscape painting and one of the great masters of the Southern Sung period.Ma Yüan, also called Ch'in-shan, was born around the middle of the 12th century in Ch'ien-t'ang (modern Hangzhou), Chekiang Province. He represented the fourth generation in a tradition of painters spanning five generations, beginning with his great-grandfather, Ma Fen, and ending with his son, Ma Lin, all of whom served the Sung emperors as court painters-in-attendance. The family seat was in Ho-chung, Shansi Province, but the occupation of North China in 1126 by the Chin Tatars forced the family, and the government, to flee to the south.Although the family tradition doubtless had strong influence on Ma Yüan's development as a painter, he was also indebted to the great …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…a gnarled pine and the icy infinity of the sky. To convey so much with such sparing means--black ink on plain silk--is an artistic achievement of the first rank and places Ma Yüan among the leading artists of the Sung period.The Ma-Hsia style was sometimes dismissed by later critics as consisting of "leftover mountains and broken trees," largely because of the weakness of the dynasty itself, which lost China to the Mongols. Nonetheless, the style was vigorously revived in the late 14th century under the early Ming emperors, as a symbol of the restored Chinese Empire, and had a formative influence on Japanese professional painters. Further Reading Ma Yüan is extensively discussed in Oswald Siren, Chinese Painting: Leading Masters and Principles, vol. 1 (1956). The art of the Southern Sung period as a whole is treated by James Cahill, The Art of Southern Sung China (1962). |