1190
1195
馬遠
Ma Yüan was born around 1160, in Qiantang (now Hangzhou, Zhejiang), China into a family of court painters: his great grandfather, Ma Fen, had been daizhao (i.e. painter in attendance) at the Northern Song court about 1119 – 1125. Both his grandfather Ma Xingzu and his father, Ma Shirong, held the same rank at the Southern Song court in the middle decades of the 12th century.
At some point after 1189, Ma Yuan received the same position under Emperor Guangzong. He evidently enjoyed a high reputation at the court and was a favorite of Emperor Ningzong. He who wrote several poems inspired by Ma Yuan’s paintings. Nothing more is known about his life.
Although the family tradition doubtless had strong influence on Ma Yüan's development as a painter, he was also indebted to the great northern landscape and figure master Li T'ang (died after 1130), whose style bridged the transition from the monumental art of Northern Sung to the more intimate, lyrical taste of Southern Sung.
Ma Yuan’s paintings offer a glimpse of court life in Hangchow. Many of the works attributed to him de-pict favorite aristocratic pastimes, such as nighttime entertainment in a villa or scenes from the pan-oramic than a retlection ot the grandeur ol the bung court. Consciously or not, he began a style unique to him and his younger contemporary, Hsia Kuci, which would make his career a watershed in the history of Chinese art.
In addition to his nicknames Ch’in-shan and Ho- chung, Ma was also known as "One- Cornered Ma".The latter name reveals the innova-tive aspects of Ma’s career. “One comer” refers to a tendency in many of Ma’s works to emphasize one corner of a scene.
Ma’s one-cornered style calls to mind the ap-proach of the great Taoist historian of the Early Han, Ssu-ma Ch’icn (fl. 100 B.C.), who often narrated a biography of a particular subject from the narrow perspective of the subject himself, and left other perspectives to the biographies of the subject’s contem-poraries. In a sense, this too was a one-cornered approach. One final explanation for Ma’s style is that, as part of China was occupied by a "barbarian" state, the Juchen Chin Dynasty, the Southern Sung constituted only a corner of the true Chinese empire and was, as mentioned above, incomplete.
Ma Yuan was one of the great masters of the Southern Sung period. He developed a personal style, with marked decorative elements such as the pine. A characteristic feature of many paintings is the so-called "one-corner" composition, in which the actual subjects of the painting are pushed to a corner or a side, leaving the other part of the painting more or less empty. Ma Yuan’s lyrical and romantic interpretation became the model for many later painters. His paintings has inspired both Chinese artists of the Zhe School, as well as the great early Japanese painters Shūbun and Sesshū.
Banquet by Lantern Light
Walking on a Mountain Path in Spring
1190Angler on a Wintry Lake (detail)
1195Confucius
Water Album - The Waving Surface of the Autumn Flood
Dancing and Singing (Peasants Returning from Work)
Water Album - The Yellow River Breaches its Course
Dancing and Singing (Peasants Returning from Work) (detail 3)
Dancing and Singing (Peasants Returning from Work) (detail 1)
Dancing and Singing (Peasants Returning from Work) (detail 2)
Gentleman in a Garden (traditionally attributed to Ma Yuan)
Water Album - Clouds Rising from the Green Sea
Water Album - Ten Thousand Riplets on the Yangzi
Immortal Riding a Dragon
Ma Yuan had a son, Ma Lin, who rose to the rank of painter-in-waiting and was the last painter in the family.
