Dong Yuan
Dong Yuan (董源) (ca. 937–ca. 962), met de hoffelijke naam Shuda, kwam uit Zhongling in de prefectuur Hongzhou (het huidige township Zhongling, arrondissement Jinxian, stad Nanchang, provincie Jiangxi). Hij was een meester-schilder uit de periode van de Vijf Dynastieën en de grondlegger van de Zuidelijke School van landschapsschilderkunst. Samen met Li Cheng en Fan Kuan wordt hij beschouwd als een van de 'Drie Grote Meesters van de Noordelijke Song-dynastie'. 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".