Qinglü shanshui

also: Blue-green shan shui · 青綠山水

style Tang dynasty onward (from c. 600) China

Qinglü shanshui - literally blue-green mountain-water - is a variety of Chinese shan shui landscape painting built on mineral pigments: azurite for blue and malachite for green, often accented with gold or ochre on silk. It tends to signal the archaic, courtly register of the landscape tradition. The style was formulated in the Tang dynasty by Li Sixun, a general and painter, and his son Li Zhaodao, though comparable color landscapes appear earlier in the Six Dynasties. Later critics such as Dong Qichang tied it to the Northern school of landscape. Distinct sub-schools developed: great and little blue-green landscapes and the gold-flecked bright-green (jinbi) variant, with the little style dominant through Yuan, Ming and Qing and brought to a late-Ming climax by the Zhe-school painter Lan Ying. Careful outline-based and freer expressive treatments coexist.

Wang Ximeng , "A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains" (complete, 51.3 × 1191.5 cm), Palace Museum , Beijing.
Wang Ximeng , "A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains" (complete, 51.3 × 1191.5 cm), Palace Museum , Beijing.Public domain (credit: Wang Xi) · source

Defining characteristics

  • Landscapes colored in azurite blue and malachite green over ink outlines on silk
  • Gold or ochre accents on peaks, architecture and water (the jinbi bright-green variant)
  • Fine outlined (gongbi) brushwork with flat, saturated fields of mineral color
  • Layered mountains and streams seen from a high vantage, with tiny figures or palaces set among them
  • Courtly, decorative finish that reads as archaic and precious

Key figures

  • Li Sixun (651-716) — Tang general and painter credited with formulating the style
  • Li Zhaodao (fl. 8th century) — Son of Li Sixun who developed the style's monumental courtly manner
  • Qiu Ying (1494-1552) — Ming master of gongbi who revived blue-green landscape in polished archaizing works
  • Lan Ying (c. 1585-1664) — Zhe-school painter who brought the little blue-green style to a late-Ming climax

Example works

  • Spring Outing (遊春圖) — Zhan Ziqian (c. 600)
  • Emperor Minghuang's Journey to Sichuan (明皇幸蜀圖) — Attributed to Li Zhaodao (8th century)

Sources

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