Landscapes after Song and Yuan Masters,

1712

One of the most dynamic painters of his era, Wang Hui was capable of almost any technical style. He was commissioned by the emperor to create large-scale imperial paintings and was in high demand among literati patrons of the south. Although Wang Hui was known as one of the “Six Orthodox Masters” of the early Qing period, and emphasized brushwork in his paintings accordingly, he was less concerned with strict stylistic emulation of an Orthodox canon than his contemporaries were. Qian Du praised Wang Hui by associating his color with ancient painters: “his [early] blue and green style was somewhat common, but in his later years [it became] excellent, and by the end he came close to the ancients.”