범관(范寬) Fan Kuan
북송 초기의 산수화가이다. 이름은 중정(中正), 자(字)는 중립(仲立)이며, 산시(陜西) 화원(華原) 사람으로, 대범하고 침착한 성격으로 해서 ‘범관(范寬)’이라는 이름으로 불리었다.
원망(遠望)하더라도 좌외(座外)를 떠나지 않고 발밑으로부터 솟아오른 듯한 거대한 주산(主山)을 화면의 중앙에 배치하고, 5대(代)의 형호(荊浩)·관동(關同)의 당조(唐朝) 이래의 전통적인 화풍을 계승하였다고 간주된다. 산림(山林) 중에 종일 정좌(正坐)하고, 귀가 후에는 일실(一室)에 틀어박혀 마음으로 체득한 이미지에 따라서 제작하는 ‘흉중(胸中)의 구학(丘壑)’의 작화태도(作畵態度)는 범관으로부터 유래된다고 한다.
Zhongli, better known by his pseudonym Fan Kuan.
Travelers among Mountains and Streams, a large hanging scroll, is Fan Kuan's best known work and a seminal painting of the Northern Song school. It establishes an ideal in monumental landscape painting to which later painters were to return time and again for inspiration.[4] The classic Chinese perspective of three planes is evident - near, middle (represented by water and mist), and far. Unlike earlier examples of Chinese landscape art, the grandeur of nature is the main theme, rather than merely providing a backdrop.[3] A packhorse train can barely be seen emerging from a wood at the base of a towering precipice. The painting's style encompasses archaic conventions dating back to the Tang Dynasty.[5]
The historian Patricia Ebrey explains her view on the painting that the:
...foreground, presented at eye level, is executed in crisp, well-defined brush strokes. Jutting boulders, tough scrub trees, a mule train on the road, and a temple in the forest on the cliff are all vividly depicted. There is a suitable break between the foreground and the towering central peak behind, which is treated as if it were a backdrop, suspended and fitted into a slot behind the foreground. There are human figures in this scene, but it is easy to imagine them overpowered by the magnitude and mystery of their surroundings.[6]
Fan's masterpiece Travellers among Mountains and Streams bears a lost half-hidden signature rediscovered only in 1958.[5]
