f
artists, who were more difficult to control. The magnificent movement of
the Sung period began to abate; it produced its last master pieces and
gradually waned, until under Ming rule it was to die out completely.

The Yuean epoch, therefore, appears in the light of a transition period
connecting the fifteenth century of Ming with the thirteenth century of
Sung. From the point of view which interests us, it did nothing but
complete a work which had been carried on with energy and success by
adherents in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It strove to reduce
China to a severely regulated State in which all great movements and
impulses should be under strict control. It succeeded. It succeeded so
well, indeed, that the Europeans who came to know China in the seventeenth
century and who rediscovered it so unnecessarily in the nineteenth
century, believed it to have been motionless for two thousand years. There
is no need to lay stress here upon the absurdity of this prevalent
opinion. It has been seen in the past and will be seen in modern times,
that the inner travail, the evolution and the diversity are by no means
arrested. Like the nations of Europe, China has had its evolution; the
causes were analagous, its destiny the same. This is especially felt in
the history of its painting. When the potent inspiration of the Southern
School began to wane, the style of the North took the upper hand for
obvious reasons.

[Illustration: PLATE XV. PAINTINGS OF THE YUeAN OR EARLY MING PERIOD
Style of the Northern School. Collection of R. Petrucci.]

Partially civilized barbarians occupied the highest places in the State.
They were the controlling party at the imperial court and had usurped the
place of the old society, refined, subtle and perhaps too studied, which
formed the environment of the last Sung emperors. Despite their naive
efforts and good will, these barbarians could not fathom an art so
austere, enlightened and balanced. They were utterly ignorant of such a
masterly conception of nature as was evoked in Chinese painting.
Monochrome to them was dull. They could admire on trust, but they could
not understand. On the other hand, the Northern style with its bold
assurance, strong coloring and drawing positive almost to the point of
seeming sculptural, was more akin to their mental outlook. There at least
they found something which recalled those rugs on which they appear to
have exhausted their artistic resources.