Qu Ding
Meester van Song-panoramalandschappen
Qu Ding(屈鼎) was a painter of the Northern Song dynasty, from the capital (modern-day Kaifeng, Henan). During Emperor Renzong's reign, he served at the Painting Academy. He was skilled at painting landscapes, following the style of Yan Wengui. He was good at composition, showing twists and turns among valleys and streams. His paintings captured the changes of nature through the four seasons, as well as the harsh yet graceful appearance of misty clouds and rugged rocks, all done without forcing the style. He was the teacher of Xu Daoning. One of his surviving works is "Summer Mountain". This painting is a long landscape scroll on silk, using a panoramic composition to depict summer scenery in the mountains and fields. It is now housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the U.S. For a long time, it was attributed to Yan Wengui, but later research by scholars, particularly Fang Wen, confirmed it as an authentic work by Qu Ding.