Ni Zan

[1] He was born after the death of the Kublai Khan, the Mongol ruler who defeated the Song and established dominance over all the areas that had traditionally been considered China.

Their paintings depicted representations of natural settings that were highly localized, portraying personally valued vistas that reflected their individual feelings.

Throughout the 1340s, the Yuan rulers also imposed heavy taxes on the rich landowners of the region in order to cover the cost of the ongoing natural disasters.

Ni Zan's landscapes after 1345 all take very much the same form: ink-monochrome paintings of widely separated riverbanks rendered in sketch brushwork and foreground trees silhouetted against the expanse of water.

Why should I worry whether it shows likeness or not?” Ni Zan travelled around southern China during the collapse of the Yuan Dynasty and spent his time painting.