Selected Works of Five Dynasties Masters Dong Yuan and Ju Ran

Author: Tianjin People's Fine Arts Publishing House
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-01-01
Features: Dong Yuan, styled Shuda, was a native of Nanjing and a painter of the Southern Tang dynasty during the Five Dynasties period in China. He is also known as Dong Yuan (Dong Yuan) and styled Shuda, born in Zhongling (near Nanchang, Jiangxi). His birth and death years are unknown, and he was primarily active during the reign of the second ruler of Southern Tang (934–960). Due to his appointment as Vice Director of the Beiyuan (Northern Garden), he was later referred to as "Dong Beiyuan." Little is known about Dong Yuan's life. The Record of Pictures Seen and Heard lists him among non-professional painters under the category "Kings, Officials, and Scholars Who Follow Benevolence and Pursue Arts." However, another entry in the same book mentions that Dong Yuan was summoned along with other court artists like Gao Chonggu, Zhou Wenju, Zhu Cheng, and Xu Chongsi to paint the Snow Appreciation Painting during the New Year's snow banquet in the fifth year of the Bao Da era (947) of the Southern Tang second ruler. This suggests that Dong Yuan, like Gao Chonggu, was a professional painter who served the ruler with his art.
Dong Yuan excelled not only in landscape painting but also in depicting cattle, tigers, dragons, and figures. As a landscape painter, he was not confined to a single style. The Song Dynasty praised his colored landscape paintings for their richness and elegance, resembling the style of Li Sixin. However, his most original and accomplished works were his ink landscape paintings. He used the pi ma cun (hemp rolling brush technique) and dian tao fa (dotting technique) to depict the natural scenery of the Jiangnan region, masterfully conveying the misty mountains, hidden islets, and smoky forests. His brushwork was often rough and seemingly unrefined at first glance, but from a distance, the scenery appeared vibrant and full of life, demonstrating great creativity in technique. His famous works, such as the Summer Landscape at the Mountain Pass with People Waiting to Cross and the Xiangxi River Painting, vividly portray the lush hills, abundant vegetation, and dense clouds of the Jiangnan region in summer. His brushwork techniques perfectly suited the specific landscapes he depicted. Shen Kuo of the Song Dynasty described him as "often painting the true mountains of Jiangnan without using sharp or extraordinary brushwork." The mountains he painted were mostly rolling hills in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, often with gentle slopes and earthy mountains capped with rocks, rarely featuring steep or abrupt formations. This contrasted sharply with the majestic northern mountains depicted by his predecessor Jing Hao.
Dong Yuan placed great importance on the depiction of figures in his landscape paintings, often incorporating scenes with folk art elements, which sometimes served as the main theme of the entire work. Though small in scale, his figures were simple yet refined, set against the ink brushwork with heavy colors like blue, red, and white, creating a rich and ancient charm. Other surviving works include the Dragon and the Villagers in the Suburban Area.
The new style of ink landscape painting created by Dong Yuan was later followed by the monk Ju Ran, and the two were henceforth known as "Dong Ju." During the Song Dynasty, aside from Mi Fu and Shen Kuo, who highly admired the Dong Ju style, most critics did not rate it highly. However, by the Yuan Dynasty, the influence of Dong Ju grew. Tang Hou believed, "Mountain paintings reached perfection in the Song Dynasty, and Dong Yuan surpassed all others," giving Dong Yuan new recognition. The Four Masters of the Late Yuan and the Wu (Jiangnan) school of the Ming Dynasty revered Dong Yuan as a model. In the late Ming Dynasty, the "North and South Schools" theory, while theoretically honoring Wang Wei as the "ancestral master of the Southern School of painting," practically followed Dong Yuan. Huang Gongwang of the Yuan Dynasty said, "Those who paint mountains must study Dong Yuan as their master, just as those who compose poetry study Du Fu." Wang Jian of the Qing Dynasty remarked, "In painting, as in calligraphy, the presence of Dong Ju is like the presence of Zhong Yao and Wang Xizhi—without them, one is lost." Dong Yuan's profound influence on later generations is rare in the history of Chinese landscape painting.