Huang Kung-wang(1269-1354)

Original: Ink on Thin Silk. Size: 79.6 cm. by 58.5cm. Wallscroll

    Huang Kung-wang (1269-1354) was a native of Fu-yang, Chekiang. His familiar name was Tzu-chiu; his sobriquets I-feng, Ta-ch'ih Tao-jen and Ching-hsi Tao-jen. In landscape he followed the Tung Yuan and Chü-jan school, eventually establishing his own style. He was devoted to the arts of music, painting and poetry. He was the oldest and the most prominent of the four great landscape artist of the Yüan period, and probably exercised more influence than any other painter on the development of the so-called "School of Literary Painters" during the Ming and Ch'ing periods. Generally speaking, the works of Huang Kung-wang may be divided -into two stylistic types. In one type of picture, he used light purple colour, whereas the other type was executed in black ink only, the portrayal of the surfaces of rocks and trees being very much simpler in-structure and technique than the first type. He held an official position for a period and then left to become a Taoist priest. He spent the remainder of his life in the Fu-ch'un mountains near Hangchou.