At the beginning of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, Chinese landscape painting had an independent branch. Since then, landscape, figures, flowers and birds have become
the three major artistic subjects that shine in traditional Chinese painting. Landscape painting is not only a unique scenery in the world's art jungle, but also carries the most profound sustenance in the field of Chinese humanities, accompanying Chinese art through the most glorious historical period. It should be said that the great development of Chinese landscape painting has a great relationship with "Jin people discovered nature outwardly and discovered their deep feelings inwardly (Zong Bai Chinese)". The literati finally found a unique confessional context. While describing the natural landscape with pen and ink, they poured out the infinite love and elegance of heaven and earth in their hearts.
Guo Xi, a great painter of the Northern Song Dynasty, compared landscapes to "Spring mountains are as calm as a smile, summer mountains are as green as drops, autumn mountains are as bright as makeup, and winter mountains are as pale as sleep." This is simply what Xin Qiji wrote "I see green mountains." How charming, I expected Qingshan to be like this when seeing me." While looking forward to nature, the artist personified the mountains, rivers and lakes, thus integrating the artistic life with the mountains, rivers and earth.
Ma Yuan, a painter of the Southern Song Dynasty, has a painting called "Boat on the Bank of the Reed", which has a profound artistic conception and is very interesting. In the far distance of the painting, a very simple brushwork is used, with a few brush strokes of distant mountains, outlining the distant scenery. Nearby is a lonely boat, a few pieces of reed grass, and the water bank is just around the corner, and everything is desolate. A man in white clothes huddled on the boat, staring dreamily at half of the mountains and rivers in the distance. There are only two sections in the whole painting, the upper and lower sections. There is not much ink in the whole painting, and there is a large amount of white space, which gives people unlimited reverie and broad hopes. It highlights the author's resentful mood at that time when he was committed to a peaceful corner of the south of the Yangtze River and his longing for the distant future. Deep longing for my hometown.
Ma Yuan, who was called "Ma Yijiao" by later generations of painters, was good at seeing the big from the small. He does not use the panoramic composition of conventional painting methods, but uses a subjective cut-off method, omitting all elements that have nothing to do with the theme. What a wise choice! This superb cropping technique refines nature, Wonderful creation of nature, everything is to promote the theme, and everything is a foil to the theme. The state of mind is vivid in the size of the painting, the interest is revealed beyond the pointillism, and the poetic and artistic feelings are skillfully expressed.