Hawk Pursuing Water Birds

The style of this painting is close to that of Lin Liang, one of the most stellar fifteenth-century painters active at the court of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). This composition painted by one of his followers may preserve one of the great master's own lost works. The twentieth-century inscriptions on the work falsely assign it to a Song dynasty (960-1279) artist and can be disregarded as intrusive, later additions. 

Lin Liang's work features swift, bold brushstrokes, but here a slight stiffness and flatness reveal that it was a follower who created the painting. The brushwork here only hints at the brilliantly laid-out, tightly structured compositions of Lin that come to life with carefully paced movement of birds in flight. This work probably represents the court aesthetic at a level enjoyed by princely households outside of the palace.

Close observation of nature was one of the key features of Lin Liang's style-in particular, he mastered an idiom of marshes teeming with plants and water fowl that in their remoteness seemed desirable to his clientele living in busy, urban Beijing. Here, the waterfowl are prey to a swooping hawk, whose earthward lunge symbolizes strength and power. Predatory birds in fifteenth-century court-style painting became iconic images of the dynasty's vitality.