Fan Kuan
Monumental Northern Song landscape painter
Fan Kuan (circa 950–circa 1032), also known as Zhongzheng(中正), with the courtesy name Zhongli(中立), was from Huayuan in Shaanxi (today's Yaoxhou District, Tongchuan, Shaanxi) and a master painter of the Song Dynasty. Because of his generous and open-minded character, people called him 'Kuan'(宽), so he took Fan Kuan as his name. Fan Kuan, Dong Yuan, and Li Cheng are together known as the 'Three Great Masters of Northern Song.' His artistic achievements were on par with Li Cheng, and they were collectively called 'Li-Fan.' He is also mentioned along with Liu Gongquan(柳公权), who was also from Huayuan, as 'Liu-Fan.'(柳范) He first studied under Li Cheng, but later felt that 'learning from people is not as good as learning from nature,' so he secluded himself in Zhongnan and Taihua, modeling nature in a personal style and creating his own distinctive approach. His paintings feature mountains that are solid and dignified, with a grand and imposing momentum that gives a sense of rugged majesty. His brushwork was strong and powerful, with various textures like raindrops, beans, and nailheads. He often painted dense forests on mountaintops and placed huge rocks by the water, dyeing buildings in dark tones. He was also excellent at snow scenes. His surviving works include 'Travelers among Mountains and Streams,' 'Snowy Mountain and Xiao Temple,' and 'Snowy Cold Forest.' In 2004, the American magazine Life ranked Fan Kuan as the 59th of 'The 100 Most Influential People of the Past Thousand Years.'