Editing Chinese art (section)

==== Yuan painting ====
[[File:Emperor Taizu play Cuju.jpg|thumb|250px|A painting depicting [[Emperor Taizu of Song]] playing ''[[cuju]]'' (i.e. Chinese football) with his prime minister [[Zhao Pu]] (趙普) and other ministers, by the [[Yuan dynasty]] artist [[Qian Xuan]] (1235–1305)]]

With the fall of the Song dynasty in 1279, and the subsequent dislocation caused by the establishment of the [[Yuan dynasty]] by the [[Mongol]] conquerors, many court and literary artists retreated from social life, and returned to nature, through landscape paintings, and by renewing the "blue and green" style of the Tang era.<ref name="Capon and Pang, pg. 12">Capon and Pang, pg. 12</ref>

[[Wang Meng (painter)|Wang Meng]] was one such painter, and one of his most famous works is the ''Forest Grotto''. [[Zhao Mengfu]] was a Chinese scholar, painter and calligrapher during the [[Yuan dynasty]]. His rejection of the refined, gentle brushwork of his era in favor of the cruder style of the 8th century is considered to have brought about a revolution that created the modern Chinese landscape painting. There was also the vivid and detailed works of art by [[Qian Xuan]] (1235–1305), who had served the Song court, and out of patriotism refused to serve the Mongols, instead turning to painting. He was also famous for reviving and reproducing a more Tang dynasty style of painting.

The later Yuan dynasty is characterized by the work of the so-called "Four Great Masters". The most notable of these was [[Huang Gongwang]] (1269–1354) whose cool and restrained landscapes were admired by contemporaries, and by the Chinese literati painters of later centuries. Another of great influence was [[Ni Zan]] (1301–1374), who frequently arranged his compositions with a strong and distinct foreground and background, but left the middle-ground as an empty expanse. This scheme was frequently to be adopted by later [[Ming dynasty|Ming]] and [[Qing]] dynasty painters.<ref name="Capon and Pang, pg. 12"/>