Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Guo Xi
Northern Song court landscape painter from Wen county in Heyang whose signed Early Spring is dated 1072
A desk holds an unrolled sheet bearing three bold black ink strokes, with a rack of many brushes above it, a stone ink slab and ink stick, a porcelain bowl, a red lacquer box, a dish of red seal paste and a paperweight; a small seated figure shows through a round window onto bamboo.
Also known as Zi Chunfu · Guo Heyang
Guo Xi, courtesy name Chunfu, came from Wen county in Heyang, in today's Henan, and was known as Guo Heyang. Under Emperor Shenzong he worked in the imperial painting academy, listed in the Xuanhe Catalogue of Paintings as an academician, and later rose to head of the Hanlin painters in attendance. His landscapes follow Li Cheng, with wintry trees, mist and far vistas. His son Guo Si compiled his teachings as Lofty Message of Forests and Streams, which sets out the three kinds of distance: high, deep and level. Early Spring in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, is inscribed as painted in the renzi year, 1072, and Old Trees, Level Distance in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is dated 1078.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; active chiefly under Emperor Shenzong of Song (1068-1085)