Seeing Off a Guest on a Mountain Path (Shan lu songke)
Description
Formerly, this painting was attributed to the late Northern Song master Li Tang (ca. 1070s–ca. 1150s). Scholarship now identifies the poem inscribed at the top of the painting as Tang Yin's calligraphy:
In front of Mount Nüji, traversed by wild paths,
The sound of whispering pines mixes with that of a stream.
Striking his pony once, he rides into the sunset.
With wind in my ears, I see my guest off on his way.
Tang Yin was a gifted man, with the promise of high office. In the examinations at the capital, he gained first place but was immediately disgraced following allegations of cheating. From then on he pursued the diversions of an eccentric scholar-artist, and his life entered the annals of popular legend.
After the premature end to his official career, Tang Yin learned to paint, and was soon forced to sell his paintings to survive. His independent spirit is reflected in his art, which is technically brilliant and cannot be classified in any one school. His brushwork and composition have the boldness and vigor of the Ming dynasty Zhe School painters, while his delicacy and poetic expression are qualities associated with the scholar-painters of the Wu School. The Zhe School was a loosely associated group of professional landscape painters in the area of Hangzhou who worked in freer styles after the Song artists, such as Ma Yuan (act. ca. 1190–1264) and Xia Gui (act. first half of 13th century). The Wu School, centered in Suzhou, refined the expressionistic calligraphic manner of the Yuan dynasty masters, developing a simplified brush idiom that came to reflect the aura of a "gentleman."
