In Chinese painting history, painters of the same period or region are sometimes mentioned together. An example is the Four Great Painters of the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368). The four are Huang Gongwang , Ni Zan, Wu Zhen and Wang Meng, who were all excellent painters of mountains and water scenes.

Spring Travel Painting by Zhan Ziqian, Sui Dynasty

Landscape is an important branch of traditional Chinese painting. In early Chinese paintings, mountains and forests were drawn very small as embellishments for the human figures. But in the Spring Travel Painting, drawn by Zhan Ziqian in the Sui Dynasty, mountains and water had become the main theme of the painting.

By Li Sixun of Tang Dynasty

The new painting form developed to a more mature stage in the Tang Dynasty, and several famous landscape painters appeared. They include the Li Sixun family, who specialized in green mountain and river painting, and Wei Yan and Zhang Zao, who excelled in splashed-ink landscapes.

By Fan Kuan of Song Dynasty

Mountains and water painting, too, reached a peak in the Song Dynasty. Landscape painters of different styles emerged in large numbers. Among them are the northern style landscape painters Li Cheng, Fan Kuan and Guo Zhongshu with their bold painting style and the southern style painters Dong Yuan and Ju Ran whose paintings had a delicate beauty with light colors.

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.

Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountain by Huang Gongwang　

Huang Gongwang (1269-1354) was a native of Changshu in Jiangsu Province. He served as a junior officer when he was young but was thrown into prison because of his involvement in a crime committed by someone else. Coming out of the prison, he changed his name to Yifeng, became a Taoist monk and began to study painting. After the age of 50, he retired in Hangzhou and concentrated on painting. Huang learned from his uncle Zhao Mengfu , who was also a well-known painter of the Yuan Dynasty, and other Song Dynasty painters.

As Huang got older, he buried himself in the natural world to experience the essence of life and formed his own pure and natural artistic style. His most representative work is Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountain. He spent seven years completing this 396.6cm long and 33cm high picture, which contained the most beautiful scenes on the two banks of the Fuchun River . He used a central and side brush technique, sometimes dry, sometimes wet; both the wrinkling and rubbing methods are employed in his painting.

By Ni Zan

Ni Zan, a native of Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, was born into a wealthy family. He left his home after Zhu Yuanzhang 's uprising, abandoned his fields and home, obtained a small boat, and spent his life on lakes and rivers. Most of his paintings are about the scenes and sights of the Pinghu Lake. He was good at using the dry brush and those strokes that utilize the side of the brush.

Fishing Village in Autumn by Ni Zan

His representative works include Fishing Village in Autumn, House on the Zizhi Mountain and Looking into the Mountain on River Bank. His suggestion that paintings should be done and viewed for enjoyment was appreciated by the literati.

House on the Zizhi Mountain by Ni Zan

Wu Zhen was a native of Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province . He was knowledgeable but arrogant and lived a secluded life in the countryside. He learned painting from the famous painter Ju Ran and was good at using wet brush and strokes. The style of his paintings is vast and gloomy. His representative works are Eight Scenes of Jiahe and Water-bound Village.

Seclusion in Qingbian by Wang Meng

Wang Meng was a native of Huzhou who lived from the late Yuan (1279-1368) to the early Ming (1368-1644) Dynasty. He served in the Tai'an government in the early Ming Dynasty , was implicated and put into prison, and eventually died behind the bars. He learned painting from his grandfather on the maternal side, Zhao Mengfu, when he was young, and befriended Huang Gongwang and Ni Zan when he grew up.

Wang liked to use a very dry brush to draw dots in his pictures, and his pictures are rich in content. Wang liked to draw dense forests in the towns by the Yangtze River , and his paintings are always magnificently conceived. His representative works include Seclusion in Qingbian, Summer Residence in the Mountain and Reading in Spring in the Mountain.

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 dynasty and were influenced by the artistic trend of the time, most of their works reveal a tranquil beauty divorced from reality. Their works had a big influence on the development of landscape painting in the later Ming and Qing dynasties.