Viewing the Characteristics of Chinese Landscape Painting from Guo Xi’s “San Yuan Method”

Abstract

The Song and Yuan Dynasties are considered a period when art theory and practice reached a very high level. Among them, painting, as an important category, has great potential. Guo Xi, a painter and theorist of the Song Dynasty, proposed “The San Yuan Method” (means three artistic principles: high, far-reaching and flat), which was compiled into a collection by his son and included in Lin Quan Gao Zhi (the elegance of the bamboo and spring), becoming an important theoretical work in the history of Chinese painting. This article will start from the theoretical foundations of "high", "far-reaching", and "flat" and use specific text analysis and theoretical exposition methods to analyze the painting characteristics of Chinese landscape painting influenced by the " San Yuan Method". The aim is to analyze the creative purpose of landscape painting and appreciate Lin Quan’s heart (Lin Quan's heart is the view put forward by Guoxi, a landscape painter in the Song Dynasty; that is, landscape painters should have an aesthetic mind when observing and painting).