ation, so to speak, of the ardent but scattered inspirations of
the great masters of the preceding school. It produced splendid
compositions in which the golden age of Chinese painting continued to be
manifest. Masters arose and if, in spite of all, they mark a reaction
toward the Northern style, seeking rich and vivid color, they give us a
vision of beauty that is equal to the work of their predecessors.

Meanwhile grave signs of decadence were apparent. Composition became
overladen and complex and began to lose something of the noble simplicity,
greatness and supreme charm of the old masters. It was evident that the
Yuean painters were working under the eye of the barbarians. They yielded
to the taste of the latter for anecdote, for surmounting difficulties and
for sentimental detail. Thus far there were only scarcely perceptible
shadows and momentary weaknesses, warning signs of decadence; but when
such signs are evident, decadence is at hand, and that which the virility
of the barbarians had preserved was to be lost through the creed-bound
dignity of an academic China, which was imprisoned in a rigid system of
rules.

VII. THE MING PERIOD--FOURTEENTH TO SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES

The Ming dynasty came into power on the wings of national feeling. China
rallied her forces and expelled the foreign tyrants. Without doubt the
nation cherished the illusion of rebuilding itself upon the model of the
past, and the first emperors of the dynasty believed that the empire could
be re-established upon an unshakable foundation. But the Ming dynasty, in
reality, was but the heir and follower of Yuean. The latter itself had been
only a connecting link. It had changed nothing, but had tended rather to
absorb into the Chinese system the Northern barbarians, who up to that
time had been foreigners. It had unwittingly achieved unity for China,
despite itself and against its own inclination. In the administration of
the empire, it had finished the program of conservation which the Sung
dynasty, through impotence, had been unable to carry to completion.

The Ming dynasty inherited the work of the Mongols and consolidated it. It
survived under their reign and under that of the Ch'ing rulers until the
final disintegration, of which we have but recently seen the results.
The peaceful ideals of the Ming dynasty, the marked predominance of
Confucianism as a code of ethics, with certain modifications by Chu Hsi,
combined to form an ensem