Chen Yongzhi

CHINA, Henan, Xuchang; Northern Song dynasty

Chen Yongzhi was also known to as Xiaoyao Chen. He worked in the Imperial Painting Academy during the rule of Emperor Renzong (reigned 1022–1063) of the Northern Song dynasty, and was considered to be an honorable and non-materialistic man.
Chen’s expertise was in painting figures, horses, and landscapes, in addition to Buddhist and Daoist images. His earlier works were said to lack a natural appeal, so in order to make improvements, he studied specific landscape painting techniques under Song Fugu to emulate a more natural scene.
Among Chen’s well-known paintings is Ascetic Sakyamuni Emerging from the Mountains, which is kept at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in Massachusetts, USA. The signature in the lower left corner of the painting suggests that it is a copy of the original work painted by Yuchi Yiseng, a monastic painter of the Tang dynasty (618–907).Another painting, Autumn Mountain, is recorded in the Xuanhe Catalog of Paintings.