Tomorrow I have my first midterm. It’s about 2 weeks before any of my other ones because my professor is going to be out of town the week after spring break (next week I believe 
).
To help me study I thought I’d post about some Chinese painters that I’m finding I simply adore. They are Ma Yuan and Xia Gui. They are from the Southern Song dynasty and were masters of the “lyric style” which was rather prevalent during that time. The lyric style is noted mostly for its intimate view of nature (sometimes with scholarly gentlemen observing it) and “diagonal view”. This just means that one corner has all this business going on and above that is a void with just a hint of something else above that in the opposite corner.
I couldn’t find the 2 paintings that my professor showed us in class anywhere on the internets so instead I found other paintings from them to show to you…
Aren’t they gorgeous? I wish I could get some prints of these paintings to hang around the house. 
