frescoes at Murtuq has recently shown that the type of Buddhist
hermit--the Lohan meditating in solitude--whose inception had, until these
discoveries, been attributed to Li Lung-mien, in reality dated much
further back and originated in the Buddhist art of Eastern Turkestan,
perhaps even in India. From those regions are derived the magnificent
subjects of which Li Lung-mien made use to express meditation. Sometimes
there are emaciated faces, withered bodies with protruding tendons that
outline deep hollows, and again rotund and peaceful figures meditating in
tranquil seclusion. From the written records as well as in his works,
there is every evidence that he was one of those who revived Buddhist
painting. No matter what models he chose to follow, he always gave them a
stress and a peculiar distinction, while from the standpoint of pure art
he had the ability to portray them with finished elegance and majestic
dignity.

Li Lung-mien was not content to paint Buddhist figures only. He painted
landscape also, and in his youth he had painted horses. A great critic of
the Sung period said of him that "his soul entered into communion with all
things, his spirit penetrated the mysteries and the secrets of nature."
This critic added that one day he saw Li Lung-mien painting a Buddhist
divinity. The words of the god fairly leapt from the lines; it seemed as
if the brush of the master summoned them one by one into being. Like all
the masters of his time, Li Lung-mien sought to free the spirit from its
outward semblance. Beyond the material, he perceived the immaterial force
which animates the world. As a landscape painter his conception of Nature
was broad and majestic. His graceful and harmonious line recalls the
happiest moments in the history of plastic art, and he challenges
comparison with a facile genius like Raphael. But he includes the whole
realm of nature in his subjects, and in his work we find traces, expressed
with greater breadth, but with quite as keen an insight, of an ancient
and noble art, such as was found almost extinct in the work of Ku
K'ai-chih.

[Illustration: PLATE XIII. PIGEONS BY CH'IEN HSUeAN
Yuean Period. Collection of R. Petrucci.]

We cannot leave the Sung painters without devoting some attention to Mi
Fei and his son. The two Mi's, indeed, accomplished a far-reaching reform
in Chinese technique; they enriched painting with a new imagery and
founded a school which, like that of Ma, exerted an