Dong Yuan
Dong Yuan(董源) (c. 937–c. 962), courtesy name Shuda, was from Zhongling, Hongzhou (today’s Zhongling Township, Jinxian County, Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province). He was a master painter of the Five Dynasties period and the founder of the Southern School of landscape painting. Along with Li Cheng and Fan Kuan, he is considered one of the "Three Great Masters of the Northern Song." During the Southern Tang period, he served as Deputy Envoy of the Northern Gardens and was nicknamed "Dong Beiyuan". After the fall of Southern Tang, he joined the Northern Song court. He excelled in landscape painting and was also skilled at painting figures and animals. His early landscape style was influenced by Jing Hao, with strong and powerful brushwork, and later he incorporated real scenes from the Jiangnan region into his paintings rather than focusing on bold or jagged peaks. His works often depict sparse forests and distant trees, vast and serene perspectives, with a texture that looks like hemp fiber—later called "pima cun". He painted fine moss on hilltops, water blending with the sky, subtle clouds and mist, mountains appearing and disappearing, and riverbanks with streams and bridges, always aiming for authenticity. As Mi Fu once said, "Plain and natural, Tang had nothing like this."" Some of his surviving works include "Waiting to Cross at the Mountain Pass in Summer," "Xiao Xiang Map," "Summer Mountains," "Banks of the Stream," "Cold Forest and Rivers in Layers," "Dragon Lodged in the Countryside," and the scroll "Calm Scenery with Flat Forests".