There is a type of literati painting from ancient China which is called “Impressionist painting”. This type of painting has two special traits. One tries to capture the “spirit” of the object being painted which is, not necessarily, the physical likeness. The 2nd trait is about the painting’s attempt to capture a sort of “humble subtleness”.

There are a few typical examples of this style of painting that survive today. One example originates from the Song Dynasty. The emperor, Zhao Ji, was an expert in painting and calligraphy. In order to select artists for the painting school, he developed a test for artists from all over the country. The topic of the test was taken from an ancient poem. On one occasion the topic was, “The fragrance of the horse’s hooves who have returned, stepping on flowers.” The requirement was to depict and emphasize the word “fragrance” in the painting. Some candidates used the literal meaning of the poem, and painted a horse running in a field of flowers. All of such straightforward methods were unpleasing to the emperor’s eye.

Eventually, a painting of several butterflies and bees, flitting around the hooves of a prancing horse, met with the emperor’s approval. Ha praised this piece highly because, the activity of the bees and butterflies made it clear, the horse had just run through flowers. And in another test, the emperor used the sentence, “Remote mountains conceal an ancient temple”. The one he appreciated is one painting of a mountain chain. The mountains were covered in forest, but, in the middle of one of the mountains was a small road. On the road, a monk was carrying water up the mountain.