FOUR MASTERS OF ANHWEI

group of Chinese artists who were born and worked in Anhwei (also An-hui, or Hsin-an) Province in the 17th century (Ch'ing dynasty) and who, being somewhat remote from the traditional centres of Chinese painting, developed rather unusual styles. The Four Masters are generally identified as the little-known artists Sun I and Wang Chih-jui, and the famous artists Hung-jen (q.v.) and Ch'a Shih-piao. Two other well-known artists of Anhwei ProvinceHsiao Yn-ts'ung and Mei Ch'ingare often substituted for the former two artists. The landscape paintings of the masters of Anhwei Province often depict the somewhat peculiar landscape features of the provinceespecially Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain). Their style is commonly quite spare and even brittle, revealing a certain similarity to the reticent style of the 14th-century painter Ni Tsan (q.v.), one of a group of painters known as the Four Masters of the Yan Dynasty (q.v.).