Brief of Fan Kuan
Li Cheng, Fan Kuan and Dong Yuan were regarded as Three Landscape Masters of Early Song.
Fan Kuan, whose original name is Fan Zhongzheng, was a native of Shaanxi province. “Kuan” means gentle or wide in chinese, so he is called Fan Kuan because of his moderate personality and his born name was rarely used instead. We don’t know so much of the date of his birth and death, what we know is he was active later than Li Cheng and was still active during Emperor Renzong of Song period (1023-1032).
According to the records of “Xuanhe Paintings List” (宣和画谱), Fan Kuan had a traditional and serious appearance, but behaved simply and naturally. He loved good wine and although he was down and out, he chose not to be limited by the society. So it seems his personality is quite similar to Li Cheng. At the same time, he also loved traveling, often traveled between Bianjing and Luoyang.
Snow Scenery and Cold Woods 雪景寒林图, Fan Kuan,
Fan Kuan's painting
According to the history of painting, Fan Kuan learned the painting style of Li Cheng at the beginning, he was good at it but he found it’s impossible to surpass Li Cheng, so he kept trying to find another way, so in his later paintings, we couldn’t see any sign of the style of Li Cheng.
Perhaps the geographical environment of his life was similar to Jing Hao and Guan Tong of Five Dynasties period, the subjects of Fan Kuan‘s paintings were similar to these two predecessors, mainly depicting the steep and high mountains in central Shannxi plain, it is supposed that he learned some features from both of them.
In the end, Fan Kuan realized that “our predecessors create their methods by learning from the nature near them, rather than learning from them, why should I learned them directly from the nature”. So that he abandoned his old painting habits, moved to live in ZhongNan Mountain and TaiHua Mountain. He often sat in the mountain all day long, watching everything surrounded especially the view of mountain, tried to make some spiritual connections with the natural views. At last, Fan Kuan rushed out the edge of the predecessors, built this new standard by himself, and finally became the Three Landscape Masters of Early Song. (the other two are Li Cheng and Dong Yuan)
Style and Feartures of Fan Kuan
First of all, in the subject matter of painting, he chose the steep mountains of the central Shannxi region, together with his honest and sincere personality were reflected in the art, his painting gave a special feeling of thick and solid.
Secondly, in the composition, there is no trivial theme, Fan Kuan often chose only the front view of the mountain, the views were unadorned and real.
Again, in the brushwork and ink, Fan Kuan chose slow drawing and heavy ink. In order to depict the clear appearance of the mountains and rocks better, Fan Kuan came up with a textural method based on the local geological features. The strokes were short, dry, wet, and dense, overlapping, resembling the slant strokes of a shower to the wall. Therefore this texture was called the “rain beating at the top of the wall texture”, or “Raindrops Texture”. This method enhanced the solidness of the rocks.The trees in the picture are also painted in black, like iron houses.
With the combination of above features, Fan Kuan’s landscape paintings gave the viewer a kind of feeling particularly hard and thick on the whole. In addition, the scenery in the painting was clear and real, giving the viewer a protruding picture and a sense of pressure coming to the face. Most painting critics had praised him highly, believing that he was the person who could paint the mountain with the greatest strength of character and spirit since ancient times.
Although Fan Kuan’s landscape paintings had been widely praised all over the nation, some critics, such as Mi Fu, had pointed out that he use ink too deeply, especially in his later years, so that the painting was not clear, dark as night, resulting in some artistic detract.
You can detect all of these styles and features in his “Travelers Among Mountains and Streams”, which is the most famous artworks of his, and also the only one which is authenticated to painted by himself.
Travelers Among Mountains and Streams 溪山行旅图, Fan Kuan
Influence of Fan Kuan's Style
Due to the wide praise of Fan Kuan’s artworks, many people tried to learn his painting style, most of them were local people from Shaanxi province, but they did not surpass Fan Kuan’s achievements. Fan Kuan’s style had a very high drawing technology difficulty because of the complexity, costing much time and spirit. So even in the Southern Song dynasty, there had been few painter who choose to use this kind of style.
During the Yuan dynasty, because of the rise of literati paintings, this kind of landscape paintings techniques is difficult to manipulated, which caused fewer painters with this style. Until the Ming dynasty came, restoring ancient ways, there were some painters of this school appear again.
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