How did Song dynasty landscape painting express the fundamental beliefs of Neo-Confucianism? Describe and analyze the style and iconography of Fan Kuan's Travelers Among Mountains and Streams to support your statements.
What will be an ideal response?
The ideal Answer should include:
1. Neo-Confucianism teaches that the li could achieve union with the Great Ultimate if the qi (matter) is purified through education and self-cultivation.
2. The study of nature was central to an artist's self-cultivation because mastering outward forms in landscape painting demonstrated that the artist understood the eternal essence of nature.
3. The composition of Fan Kuan's Travelers Among Mountains and Streams unfolds in three stages-foreground, middle ground, and background-comparable to the three acts of a drama as the viewer explores the world from front to back, bottom to top.
4. As the viewer's eye wanders through the rocks, mist, and waterfall, the painting evokes the feeling of climbing a high mountain, of leaving the human world behind to come face to face with the Great ultimate in a spiritual communion with nature.
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