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The
landscape scenery is composed of towering multifaceted cliffs with ancient
trees clinging to steep ridgetops and filling deep ravines between. In the
lower reaches of the view, a fishing boat is moored alongside a jutting
sandbar. The artist's signature appears on the face of a rocky cliff.
Hsiao Chao's paintings are quite rare; this is the only work by his hand
in the Palace Museum.
Hsiao
Chao was a painter at the court of Emperor Kao Tsung. Early in life, he
had some training in calligraphy and painting. When the Northern Sung
dynasty collapsed after the great invasion of the Chin tribesmen, he
escaped to an outlaw band in the Taihang mountains. There he captured the
great court painter, Li T'ang, then a refugee fleeing from the fallen
capital of Kaifeng. Having found out that his captive was a man not of
fortune, but of talent, he set him free, followed him to the South, became
his disciple, and learned all the secrets of the art of his teacher. Hsiao
Chao's landscapes and figures, pines and rocks were all considered
excellent. Later the former bandit was appointed as a court painter.
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