In Chinese painting history, painters of the same period or region are sometimes mentioned together.

The Mongolia overthrew the crown of the Southern Song Dynasty in 1279 and set up a new dynasty -- the Yuan Dynasty, with Dadu as the capital. In this period, Scholar Painting dominated the Yuan art circles, with various themes ranging from mountains and water scenery, bamboo and rocks, to plum blossoms. There were plenty of famous painters in the 90 years of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), among whom the most famous ones are Four Great Painters of the Yuan Dynasty, namely Huang Gongwang, Ni Zan, Wu Zhen and Wang Meng, who were all excellent painters of mountains and water scenery. Their landscape paintings represented another peak in Chinese mountains and water painting history and indicated the maturity of Scholar Painting.

In early Chinese paintings, mountains and forests were drawn very small as embellishments for the human figures. But in the Spring Travel Painting (You Chun Tu) drawn by Zhan Ziqian in the Sui Dynasty, mountains and water scenery had become the main theme of painting. The new painting form developed to a more mature stage in the Tang Dynasty, and several famous landscape painters appeared, such as Wei Yan and Zhang Zao. Mountains and water painting, too, reached a peak in the Song Dynasty; the representative is the North Branch with famous painters like Li Cheng, Fan Kuan and Guo Shu. Like the flowers and bird paintings and figure paintings of the period, the mountains and water paintings of the Song Dynasty were very realistic. The Yuan Dynasty painters later developed landscape painting from this basis, with Qian Xuan, Zhao Mengfu and Gao Kegong as the representatives in the early years of the Yuan Dynasty.

The four great painters of the Yuan Dynasty were very careful with brush stroke techniques in order to show developed artistic ideas, and their works have great aesthetic values. Because they looked back on the old dynasties and were influenced by the artistic trend of the time, most of their works reveal a tranquil beauty divorced from reality.

The works of the Four Great Painters of the Yuan Dynasty had great influence on the development of landscape painting in the later Ming and Qing Dynasties.