Important Cultural Property
Gentleman Viewing the Moon
Data
| Artist | Attributed to Ma Yuan |
|---|---|
| Period | China, Southern Song dynasty, 13th century |
| Materials and techniques | Hanging scroll, ink and light colour on silk |
| Size | 57.3×26.5 |
Explanation
A scholar clad in white robe and accompanied by a page is gazing at the moon in the sky. Ma Yuan, the supposed artist, was a representative artist of the Southern Song Imperial Academy of Painting and he was most active during the Guangzong and Ningzong periods (1189–1224). Followers of the Ma Yuan school were famous for their one-sided diagonal composition style, in which motifs are clustered on a lower corner, leaving the rest of the paper unpainted to suggest a vast expanse of space.