What do you see when you think of a painting? Not of any artist, but the instinct of the 
mind when it hears the word ‘painting’. Then, take it a step further and think about an 
emotive painting. Maybe it’s a portrait, and maybe we can thank the centuries of artists 
in the Western world who’ve given us as many portraits as there are emotions. But, 
emotion isn’t always legible; and a portrait isn’t the only vessel of expression. 

The breadth of Chinese painting extends over millennia and in this tradition, emotion is     
carved into landscapes. The name for landscape painting is ‘shan shui hua’, ‘mountains 
and waters painting’.  In a 1961 book, “Chinese Landscape Painting; The Golden Age,” 
author Chen Chih-Mai tells us that Chinese landscape painters capture the portraits of 
the mountains and waters; there is something alive, an essence, a feeling, that the 
painters are translating from natural landscape to brushstroke. And it can be said that 
there is a story written in what is tangible. 

The subject of landscape paintings in China range from the Tang dynasty (618–907) to 
Qing (1644-1912). This is centuries of painters (court painters, scholar painters, and the 
like) who have held the same tradition, used the same tools, learned from the masters of 
the past for style and expression, developed new styles, and continued the tradition of 
landscape painting for the painters of the future. 

This exhibit takes a look at landscape paintings from two artists of the Ming dynasty 
(1368-1644): Wen Zhengming and Qiu Ying, both recognized as part of the Four Masters 
of the Ming Dynasty. With a native Chinese rule, the Ming dynasty saw a variety of 
painting styles adapted from the Tang and Song dynasty. With untrained eyes, these 
nuances can go overlooked and unnoticed. But, do we need to be well-trained to 
understand that Chinese painters made the mountains speak, and waters dance?

The following collection isn’t meant to guide an understanding of the history of Chinese 
paintings, nor landscape paintings. It is an effort to gain a new perspective of how 
paintings, in all forms, express words we cannot say.