Liu Guandao or Liu Kuan-tao (; 1258 1336),

courtesy name A courtesy name ( zh, s=字, p=zì, l=character), also known as a style name, is an additional name bestowed upon individuals at adulthood, complementing their given name. This tradition is prevalent in the East Asian cultural sphere, particula ...

Zhong Xian (), was a Chinese court artist active during the

Yuan dynasty The Yuan dynasty ( ; zh, c=元朝, p=Yuáncháo), officially the Great Yuan (; Mongolian language, Mongolian: , , literally 'Great Yuan State'), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after Div ...

. A native of Zhongshan (now Dingxian),

Hebei Hebei is a Provinces of China, province in North China. It is China's List of Chinese administrative divisions by population, sixth-most populous province, with a population of over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. It bor ...

, much of his work is in a realist style, and in 1279 he rose to prominence with a well-received painting of

Kublai Khan Kublai Khan (23 September 1215 – 18 February 1294), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Shizu of Yuan and his regnal name Setsen Khan, was the founder and first emperor of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China. He proclaimed the ...

's son Zhenjin.

Career

Liu Guandao was born around 1258 in Zhongshan (now Dingxian),

. Excelling in realism, he was said to be a self-taught painter and worked as one of the "very few" court artists at the Yuan court. In 1279, Liu was praised for his painting of Emperor Kublai Khan's son Zhenjin and was promoted to "Commissioner of the Imperial Wardrobe Bureau"; a year later, he was commissioned by Kublai to produce a painting of Kublai on a hunting expedition in the

Gobi Desert The Gobi Desert (, , ; ) is a large, cold desert and grassland region in North China and southern Mongolia. It is the sixth-largest desert in the world. The name of the desert comes from the Mongolian word ''gobi'', used to refer to all of th ...

; the painting, ''Kublai Khan Hunting'', features Kublai, Empress Chabi, and a few servants, amidst "a barren scene of loess ... and a few hills". One of Liu's more famous works, ''Kublai Khan Hunting'' is housed in the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan. The museum writes of the painting, "the figures are meticulously rendered and the animals are all life-like in a naturalistic scene". Liu's depiction of Kublai Khan also confirms

Marco Polo Marco Polo (; ; ; 8 January 1324) was a Republic of Venice, Venetian merchant, explorer and writer who travelled through Asia along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295. His travels are recorded in ''The Travels of Marco Polo'' (also known a ...

account of the ruler as an "aging and obese man". A hand scroll titled ''Whiling Away the Summer'' was erroneously believed to be a

Song A song is a musical composition performed by the human voice. The voice often carries the melody (a series of distinct and fixed pitches) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs have a structure, such as the common ABA form, and are usu ...

-era work by Liu Songnian until 1935, when its owner Wu Hufan discovered "a tiny signature" belonging to Liu Guandao. ''Whiling Away the Summer'' is described as unorthodox, and not characteristic of typical Yuan artworks. In ''Whiling'', Liu "developed comparable designs, playing repeated straight lines off of crisp angles and fluid curves." Liu Guandao also painted a number of

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

s in the style of Guo Xi. ''Snow Landscape'' is attributed to Liu but is dated 1349, which is after his death in 1336. Liu is described as an " eclectic who studied a variety of old styles and combined their best points". A profile of Liu Guandao by the New York art gallery Kaikodo hails his

figure painting A figure painting is a work of fine art in any of the Painting#Painting media, painting media with the primary subject being the human figure, whether clothed or Nude (art), nude. Figure painting may also refer to the activity of creating such ...

as "truly the brushwork of an immortal".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Liu, Guandao 1250s births 1336 deaths 13th-century Chinese artists 14th-century Chinese artists Artists from Baoding Yuan dynasty painters Painters from Hebei