Gao Keming
Maître Song des paysages enneigés
Gao Keming(高克明), whose birth and death years are unknown, was from Jiangzhou (present-day Xinjiang, Shanxi) during the Song Dynasty. He was a landscape painter mainly active during the reigns of Emperor Taizong and Emperor Renzong of Song, specializing in works on Buddhist and Taoist subjects, figures, flowers and bamboo, and buildings. His tomb was discovered in 2017 in Longquanyi District, Chengdu, Sichuan. It is part of the Gao family tomb complex and was excavated and cleared by the Chengdu Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. During the Jingde era (1004-1007), Gao Keming traveled to the capital, and during the Dazhong Xiangfu era (1008-1016), he entered the Hanlin Academy of Painting, where he befriended Wang Duan, Yan Wengui, and others. Later, he was promoted to Attendant Gentleman, appointed Registrar of the Lesser Treasury Supervisor, and granted a purple robe. In the early Jingyou era (1034), he ghostpainted murals for the Zhangsheng Pavilion, and in the early Huangyou era (1049), he was commissioned to create the 'Three Dynasties Instructional Mirror', depicting a wide range of stories from three dynasties. His landscape paintings often draw on on-site observation, drawing on the strengths of various masters to form their own style. The 'Song Dynasty Famous Painting Review' rated them as the finest masterpieces. Surviving works include "Snow Intent" (currently held in the United States) and "Snow Accumulated in Mountain Streams" (held by the National Palace Museum in Taipei). Among them, "Snow Intent in Streams and Mountains" attributed to him is believed to be not a copy recorded in texts before the mid-Ming dynasty, but may be an early Southern Song piece. The Xuanhe Painting Manual records ten of his landscape works. His landscape compositions are well-layered, his brushwork is spacious and elegant, and his texture work is delicate and rigorous, skillfully depicting the scenery of mountains and forests after snow in a panoramic style.