Chinese Shan Shui Painting Through the Yuan Dynasty

Chinese Shan Shui Painting Through the Yuan Dynasty
"Autumn Colors on the Qiao and Hua Mountains," 1295, by Zhao Mengfu. Handscroll with ink on paper, 11.2 inches by 35.5 inches. National Palace Museum, Taipei. Public Domain
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Chinese landscape painting, known as shan shui (“mountain water”), can be considered one of the highest forms of expression in ancient Chinese art. But what makes this genre so unequivocally identifiable?

It begins with the fact that the ancient Chinese believed that heaven and earth exist together in harmony. Thus, ancient Chinese landscape artists sought to portray nature’s relationship with the entire cosmos.

Mike Cai
Mike Cai
Author
Mike Cai is a graduate of the New York Fei Tian Academy of the Arts and the University of California–Berkeley.
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