Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Lin Chun
Southern Song academy painter from Hangzhou under Emperor Xiaozong, known for small, delicately coloured studies of birds, flowers and fruit
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.
Lin Chun came from Qiantang, modern Hangzhou, and served as a painter-in-attendance at the Southern Song academy in the Chunxi era of Emperor Xiaozong, when he was rewarded with a gold belt. Following the Northern Song painter Zhao Chang, he painted birds, flowers, insects and fruit with careful brushwork and light colour, working closely from life, mostly on fans and album leaves. Birds and Ripe Fruit, an album leaf in the Palace Museum, Beijing, shows a small bird on a fruiting crab-apple branch and bears his signature; Camellia after Snow and other leaves under his name are in the National Palace Museum, Taipei.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; painter-in-attendance at the Southern Song academy in the Chunxi era (1174–1189)