The next two part of "fairyland of Buddhism and Taoism," and "fantasy of poetry" reflect another kind of fashion among Chinese ancients---pursuing long life and eternal life. For the Buddhism way, Zhao Mengfu, who lived in Yuan Dynasty, painted a scroll of "Western Bronze in Scarlet Cassock ," which featured the hieratic lives of Hindustan and Nepal; as for the poetry means, we can see something from "Portrait of poetry on the Luo Deity" painted in Northern Song dynasty. This Chinese paintings, based on poetry written by Caozhi of the Three Kingdoms period, offers a fantastic vision of the author’s dreamland.
Although Shan Guolin, the connoisseur, once regretfully told the reporter: "Chinese paintings of birds, flowers and other natural scenery have been inherited and appreciated much more than its figure paintings which vividly reveal numerous aspects of the Chinese ancients' lives, and the development of the latter is also lagging behind these decades," we can now pleasantly and be much gratified by the collection brought out by Shanghai and Liaoning Museum that the figure paintings have become glorious enough to show such a fashionable life in ancient China and miraculously link their lives with our own.
Edited by Liu Danqin
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