Scholar Walking with a Staff in a Landscape

On the left side of this square album leaf, a scholar holding a staff in his left hand walks alone beside a stream. His back faces the viewer, thereby adding some mystery to his mood and emotions. Rocky outcrops with several clumps and stalks of bamboo visually anchor the lower right foreground, where there is also a spurious two-character signature of Ma Yuan.

The Southern Song court artist Ma Yuan painted so many square or round album leaves with asymmetrical compositions that he was nicknamed “One-Corner Ma” (Ma yi jiao). This manner of structuring a composition was widely imitated by Chinese artists of the professional Zhe school during the Ming dynasty, as well as by Japanese ink painters of the Muromachi (1333–1573) and later periods.