Chase Rising Clouds

The article summarized the study done on Mi Family's Landscape painting,a painting school originally created by Mi Fu and Mi Youren,the father and son painters from Song Dynasty.Different from traditional studies,this study has been focused on the authenticity issues of all existing Mi Family's Landscape paintings in global public collections.By investigating all existing paintings that attributed to both Mi's,the study would like to provide a more complehensive and systematic picture of the Mi Family's Landscape painting.The article has first reviewed 28 out of 29 existing paintings attributed to Mi Fu,and 15 out of 18 that were attributed to Mi Youren.By inspecting majority of the originals directly in various museums in mainland China,Chinese taiwan,United States and Japan,the author has conducted a thorough screening of those 43 paintings and provided a preliminary assessment conclusion.As a result,8 paintings have been selected for further study,based upon the historical disputes over their authenticity and their importance to the art history.The article then summarized the literatures on Mi Family's Landscape painting and linked them to a few publicly accepted authentic works of both Mi's to identify a set of key elements what can be used for future authentification assessment.The article used those criteria and other facts that were newly discovered to assess the 8 selected paintings and provided a few new arguments on their authenticity conclusion or finishing date estimation.One of the key findings is that,with new evidences and author's study,the "Pavilion of Rising Clouds"(??????)from Freer's collection could be proved as a song painting that is very close to Mi Fu's style.The article then listed major painters and their works that adopted Mi Family's Style from Song Dynasty through current time,to provide a complete picture of the Mi Family's Landscape painting school's development across different dynasties.By looking at its impact in Chinese painting theory,water-ink painting skill and historical influence over other painters,the article has concluded that Mi Family's Landscape painting school is indeed a shining pearl in Chinese painting history.Its long-lasting influence has gone beyond the time and geographical boundary.The article finally used the painting quality-time matrix developed by the author to map out the assessment results of all paintings and demonstrated the relative relationship of them for future study.As a conclusion,the author stated that Mi Fu was an undisputed founder of the painting school,and Mi Youren,although developed the school further,had his own painting style that was slightly different from his father.The study of Mi Family's Landscape,although still has a lot to be done,has been moved forward with more evidences and research completed through this article.