Literati painting (wenren hua) emerged as the cutting edge of painting styles in the following Yuan dynasty (1279-1368). After being overrun by the foreign Mongols, the scholar-gentry class distanced itself from the preceding imperial establishment as well as from the foreign invaders. Refusing to serve in the new Mongol-controlled government in Beijing, many of the leading scholars retired to the country in the south where they wrote poems, studied the classics, played the qin, and painted. Politically disgusted with the Southern Song, whom they viewed as weak and traitorous, they rejected the paintings of that period and looked back to the earlier Five Dynasties and Northern Song periods for models of complexity and rationality.
The scholar-gentleman class admired the rich vocabulary of brushstrokes found in these monumental landscapes. They collected and copied the various methods for creating texture on mountains (cun), the numerous outline patterns for suggesting different kinds of tree leaves, and the dots (dian) for distant foliage and surface texture. Each artist, in his own way, took the strokes found in calligraphy and the earlier paintings, changing them if necessary, to form his own self expressive images. They viewed painting, like calligraphy, as an extension and expression of the man, not the depiction of things or nature, although nature — and especially landscape — remained the vehicle for this expression. With some exceptions the new aesthetic favored bland, not obviously skillful, amateur painting styles. Wu Chen, one of the Four Great Masters of the Yuan, used wet, dark ink, blunt brushstrokes, and simple repetitive shapes. Critics described his paintings as “profound and remote, with a leisurely and relaxed feeling.” And the reclusive Ni Zan was know for his pale ink, dry brush, and sparse vegetation reflecting his remote and fastidious temperament. Chao Meng Fu, a leading painter and model calligrapher wrote:
A rock should look like the “flying white,”
and a tree like the “seal” stroke.
In writing the bamboo leaves,
one should first learn the pa-fen method.
If a person understands this thoroughly,
He will discover that calligraphy and
painting have always been the same.
In keeping with their literary bias, Yuan dynasty scholar-painters appropriated the use of paper, the horizontal handscroll, and the inclusion of long inscriptions on paintings. These inscriptions of old or new poems or comments by the artist added the flavor of scholarship and antiquity to the paintings, as did the formal four-character titles which were often added. Paper, which had long been used for written records and literary works, was more receptive to movement and pressure of the brush. The handscroll format allowed the creation of a long, unfolding composition which scholars could read like a book with like-minded friends. The handscroll was not a painting that would ever be hung or set out for decoration.