Chapter 43 Fan Kuan

Fan Kuan (? -1026), Dong Yuan and Li Cheng are known as the three major landscape painters in the early Song Dynasty.It is said that his original name was not Fan Kuan, but Zhongzheng, whose style name was Zhongli (also known as Zhongli).Cai Bian once wrote about his paintings and said: "People in Guanzhong say that gentleness is lenient. Neutrality is not based on famous books, but in slang, so Fan Kuan's landscapes are passed down from generation to generation." Fan Kuan was from Huayuan (now Shaanxi).He learned from Jing Hao first, and then from Li Cheng, but he always thought that it was difficult to make a breakthrough if he followed others to make plans, so he became enlightened and took nature as his teacher.He said: "The method of the predecessors is not close to taking things. I am not as good as learning things when I am teaching others. I am not as good as learning things when I am teaching things." So he abandoned the old learning and lived in divination. In the Taihua Mountain in Zhongnan, I observe the bleak clouds and smoke among the rocks and forests, the wind and the moon, which are difficult to describe in ordinary times, so the four seasons of thousands of rocks, thousands of valleys, wind, rain and darkness are all presented in my pen.Later generations called him "good at conveying the spirit with the mountains". Song Guo Ruoxu said in "Pictures and Experiences: On the Three Schools of Landscape": "Fan's works are also the ones with thick peaks and mountains, strong momentum, well-balanced guns and pens, and all characters."

Fan Kuan likes to paint snow scenes. The top of the mountain is often made of dense forests, and the edge of the water is often made of abrupt boulders.Painting mountains and rocks are so tough, so Tang Ge's "Huajian" said: "Li Cheng got the appearance of the mountain, Dong Yuan got the spirit of the mountain, and Fan Kuan got the bone method of the mountain." Fan Kuan's paintings, "Xuanhe Painting Book" contains "Spring Mountain Picture", "Summer Mountain Picture", "Spring Mountain Pingyuan Picture", "Xia Feng Picture", "Autumn Landscape Landscape Picture", "Winter Landscape Landscape Picture", "Snow Mountain Picture" and "Cold Forest Picture" ", "Mountain Yin and Xiao Temple Map", "Smoke, Mist and Autumn Dawn Map" and other fifty-eight pieces.Today, there are "Traveling in Streams and Mountains", "Snow Mountain and Xiao Temple", "Snow Scenery and Cold Forest" and so on.