Rise of the Chinese Landscape Painting Genre

Timeline

1. c. 750–800Chang'an · ShaanxiIn the High Tang, Li Sixun and his son Li Zhaodao's blue-green landscapes were exquisite and splendid, representing court style. Wang Wei, with ink wash and the fusion of poetry and painting, was later revered as the pioneer of literati landscape; painters like Zhang Zao began expressing nature in ink, and landscape painting gradually separated from figure-painting backgrounds to gain independent aesthetic value.
2. 801–870Jiangnan · JiangnanIn the first half of the 9th century, ink landscape developed in parallel in Jiangnan and the north, with painters emphasizing brushwork interest and mood. Zhang Zao's dictum 'learn from nature outwardly, find the source within the heart' was recorded in painting history, marking the theoretical self-awareness of landscape painting; both court and scholar-official circles collected such works, with subjects covering streams and mountains, cloud forests, and ideals of reclusion.
3. c. 870–900Honggu, Taihang Mountains · Southern foothills of the Taihang MountainsThe late Tang painter Jing Hao observed nature for long periods at Honggu in the Taihang Mountains, wrote the 'Record of Brush Methods' proposing the 'six essentials,' and expressed the majestic northern landscape in ink; the landscape schemas he established influenced Guan Tong and the Northern Song landscape tradition. By the late 9th century, landscape painting had become an independent genre, laying the foundation for Five Dynasties and Northern Song panoramic landscape.