Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Yan Wengui
Northern Song landscape painter from Wuxing whose crowded mountain-and-pavilion scenes became known as the Yan family manner
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 Yan Wenji
Yan Wengui, also written Yan Wenji, came from Wuxing, today's Huzhou, and studied painting with Hao Hui. Under Emperor Taizong he sold paintings in the streets of Kaifeng, where the academy painter Gao Yi noticed him and recommended him for the murals of Xiangguo Temple; he then entered the Hanlin painting academy as an attendant. He painted both landscapes and figures, filling high mountain ranges with finely drawn buildings and boats, and since he did not copy older masters his manner was called the Yan family scenery. The National Palace Museum in Taipei holds the hanging scroll Pavilions Among Streams and Mountains, and the leaf Strange Peaks and Myriad Trees in a Song album is ascribed to him.
Life and times
Dates c. 967-1044