The herding buffalo paintings from the end of the Southern Song to the beginning of the Yuan are thought to express Chan Buddhist sentiments. These paintings borrow the image of a person herding a buffalo as a metaphor—the buffalo is the heart and the herder is the practitioner—in order to express the Chan concept of “Tiaofu xinyi” 調伏心意 (Mastering the heart’s intent) of a Buddhist disciple.The most famous of such works is the “Shi niu tu” 十牛圖. As attractive as this iconographic reference may be, there are still many ways to appreciate a classical painting of herding buffalo. In this essay, I will discuss the exquisite small fan-shaped painting in the Seattle Art Museum titled Buffalo and Herder Boy and demonstrate why, by comparing it with related works, I date it to the late Southern Song period. I will consider the opinions of other scholars and examine the work, including seals, in detail.

Based on the fact that there remains a partial seal cut off by the edge of the silk in the lower right corner, it can be assumed that this was originally part of a larger painting, which was intentionally converted into the rounded fan shape as it appears today. The silk has a double thread weft.

Writing about this work of art, Sherman Lee, Associate Director of the Seattle Art Museum from 1948-52—who was most likely instrumental in acquiring the painting—described it succinctly:

“The immediate foreground has a few sparse tufts of grass. Behind these at the left a heavyset buffalo (Bubalus Buffelus) is plodding along. His head is down and the lead rope lies over his back. To the right behind the bull, the slight and bent figure of a boy wearily picking his way….In the background from the center to the right lie six dark trees with heavy, tapering, shaded trunks and dark, small leaves. A few blades and tufts of grass are to be seen at the base of the tree trunk. To the left is open space, but vague and nebulous. There is no horizon.”Sherman Lee, “A Probable Sung Buffalo Painting,” Artibus Asiae, XII.4 (1949): 294.

At the core of this painting is the artist’s meticulous attention to detail, which was a criterion for dating Song paintings and distinguishing them from mannered works of later periods. For the buffalo, first the artist outlined it in ink, then following the musculoskeletal form of the body added different levels of shading. The lower abdomen, hoofs, and tips of the horns all received a darker wash, lending three-dimensionality to the buffalo’s body. The artist not only captures the proper form and texture of this animal, but gives it real momentum—as if it were lifting its foot and stepping while swinging its tail, and thus the steady plod of the buffalo is brought to life. The lead rope, which swings from the nose ring all the way to the buffalo’s back, is depicted with a single stroke of the brush applied evenly in a natural curve. The painter's ability to control the brush is abundantly evident in this small detail. 

The herder boy who is following the buffalo has ragged clothes, and he is barefooted and barelegged, with his hair in disarray. At the moment he is staring upward at the top of the staff, which he holds in his left hand, where a bird that is tied to a string spreads its wings, possibly attempting to take flight. This painting most likely illustrates a scene in a poor farming village.

In his work Discussing the painting of animal hair (Hua shou mao畫獸毛), Shen Kuo 沈括 (1031–1095) makes an interesting observation:

“Whether painting the hair of a buffalo or a tiger, you must paint the hair, only in the case of the horse this is not true. I once asked a professional painter and he said that horse hair is so fine that it could not be painted. I challenged him saying, “A rat’s hair is even finer, how could you then paint such hair?” He could not respond. Generally speaking, when painting horses, the image is not more than a chi in size; this is a case of taking the large and making it small, thereby the hair is fine and cannot be painted. But a rat, on the other hand, is in fact being depicted to its actual scale and so it is natural that the hair can be painted.

“As for the buffalo and tiger, this is also a case of taking the large and making it small. If we follow the previous principle, we ought not to be able to see the hair. However, buffalo and tiger hair is dense, whereas the hair of a horse is sparse, and therefore the principle must be different. And so when famous painters paint small buffalo and small tigers they are sure to paint the hair, but in an abbreviated sketchy [manner], that is all. If one desired to paint the hair in even more detail, on the contrary it would be excessive.

“If we were to paint horses the same size as buffalo and tigers, then based on the previous principle we ought to paint their hair. When a painter sees images of small horses painted without hair, and then paints a large picture of a horse without hair, then that is a case of the average person following the convention without thinking through the principles.”Shen Kuo沈括, Mengxi bi tan 夢溪筆談, in SBCK (Taibei: Shangwu shushe, 1966), 17.3.

畫牛虎皆畫毛，惟馬不然，予嘗以問畫工，工言馬毛細不可畫。予難之曰：「鼠毛更細，何故卻畫？」工不能對。大凡畫馬其大不過尺，此乃以大爲小，所以毛細而不可畫。鼠乃如其大，自當畫毛。然牛虎亦是以大爲小，理亦不應見毛，但牛虎深毛，馬淺毛，理須有別。故名輩爲小牛小虎，雖畫毛，但略拂拭而已，若務詳密，翻成冗長。若畫馬如牛虎之大者，理當畫毛。蓋 見小馬無毛遂亦不法，此庸人襲迹，不可與論理也。

In this particular work, when compared to the foregoing description of buffalo hair, there are strong, fine ink lines forming intricate eddies of strokes to produce buffalo hair. The tail is but one tuft; from around the silhouette of the body there are tangled clumps of fine hair, something you see from the hand of an experienced painter. When painting buffalo do we always find hair? In considering the famous Five Buffalo (Wu niu tu 五牛圖) by Dai Song 戴嵩 (active ca. 8th c.) in the Palace Museum, Beijing, collection, Dai Song did not paint hair. Painting, whether based on logic or convention, depends on the appropriate treatment for that particular work.

During the Song, a large number of buffalo and herder paintings appeared, most of which were small Southern Song works. Painters such as Li Tang 李唐 (1048–1130), Yan Ciping 閻次平 (ca. 12th c.), and Li Di 李迪(fl. 1162–1224) were particularly famous for their paintings of buffalo.

Regarding the dating of the work, Sherman E. Lee notes that in Illustrated Catalogue of Chinese Government Exhibits for the International Exhibition of Chinese Art in London (Vol. III) there is a work called Oxen (Ru niu 乳牛), (fig. 1), attributed to Li Tang, now in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, that “is somewhat like the Seattle piece in the painting of the buffalo. At the least the Buffalo and Boy appears to be related to these Li types, but is probably superior as a buffalo painting. Both Li Di (1089–1161) and Li Tang bridge the transition between the Northern and Southern Song dynasties.”Trans. note: all Wade-Giles from the original quotes have been changed to pinyin to maintain homogeny. Sherman Lee, “A Probable Sung Buffalo Painting,”299.

Fig. 1: Attributed to Li Tang, Oxen. Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei.

Sherman Lee divides Song painting into four styles:

“Fine, real, lyric, and rough. These four overlap in time but in general develop chronologically, the first being regressive, the last progressive (these are not qualitative judgments but descriptive). Our painting [in Seattle] has a strong element of the Realistic style, but with a definite mood marking a tendency to the Lyric mode. This again roughly places this painting at the midpoint of Song, as does the similarity of the unusual tree placement with the painting by Zhao Danian 趙大年.”Trans. note: I have added this line that is in Dr. Lee’s text that the author fails to quote. I have also followed the original in the following lines since the author’s Chinese reading seems at variance with the original.

This latter point might refer to the arrangement of six trees on the left side of Buffalo and Herder Boy.

Based on the foregoing, due to the exceptional quality of the design, scene, and mood, Sherman Lee leans toward consideration of Buffalo and Herder Boy as an early Southern Song work, related to the style of Li Di and Li Tang— or at the very least related to the group of conservative Northern Song painters who fled south from Kaifeng.

Fig. 2: Zhou Yong, Herding beneath Willows, 1502. Collection of Zhuang Shen, Hong Kong.

Professor Zhuang Shen 莊申 (1933-2000), on the other hand, does not agree with Sherman Lee’s assessment. Pointing out differences with Song dynasty works and likening it to the Ming dynasty painting by Zhou Yong 周用 (1476–1547), titled Herding beneath Willows (Liu yin mu niu tu 柳蔭牧牛圖), (fig. 2), dated to the 15th year of the Hongzhi 弘治 reign period, or 1502, Prof. Zhuang suggests several points of comparison.Zhuang Shen, “Ming Zhou Yong “Liaoyin mu niu tu” yu yi fu “xiangxin shi Songdai de munu tu” de zaidu jingding” 明周用柳蔭牧牛圖與一幅「相信是宋代的牧牛圖」的再度鑒定, Gugong xueshu jikan 故宮學術季刊 2.4 (July 1968), 33-48.

1. Composition: Zhuang Shen feels that both Li Tang and Li Di only depict foreground and middle ground while not painting clear background elements. The empty spaces are rendered skillfully. Southern Song artists typically use hanging and slanted tree branches to indicate the movement of people and water buffalo. Strategic placement of motifs to suggest movement was a compositional device during the Southern Song. The circular format can achieve that purpose. However, Zhou’s painting clearly does not exemplify this circular composition.

2. Horizontal receding ground plane: According to Zhuang, it is a new post-Song development that creates a square composition. In this work, based on the particular painting method for the slanting plane, it is achieved by the long length of the near tree trunks and the short length of the distant tree trunks. Zhuang Shen believes it is a method developed during the 13th century by Zhao Mengfu and his contemporaries.

3. Method used to paint the trees: In Zhuang's opinion the background row of trees in the Seattle work is different from those in the water buffalo paintings of Li Tang and Li Di, which only use one or two trees to set off the open space, but they are very similar to the painting style of Zhou Yong, as seen in the single row of willow trees in his Herding beneath Willows (Liu yin mu niu tu 柳蔭牧牛圖).

4. Method used to paint people: In comparing the figures in the Seattle painting and the painting Beggars and Street Characters (Liu min tu 流民圖), (fig. 3) by Zhou Chen周臣 (ca. 1450–ca. 1535), Honolulu Academy of Arts, Zhuang asserts that there are a number of similarities. He also states that Song painters did not specialize in painting figures of low social standing.

Fig. 3: Zhou Chen, Beggars and Street Characters (detail), 1516. © Honolulu Academy of Arts.

5. Method used to paint water buffalo: The shading on the body of the buffalo in the Seattle work is similar to the method of painting water buffalo in Zhou Yong’s Herding beneath Willows 柳蔭牧牛圖, (fig. 2). Moreover, in Zhuang's opinion, the painters of the 12th century only had a rudimentary understanding of light and shadow. Places on the buffalo’s legs, front knee, hooves, calves of the beast's rear legs and rump are gray, but relative to the rest of the buffalo’s body, these parts are lighter in color, most likely depicting the areas where the hair on the buffalo had been rubbed smooth by repeated lying down and standing up. The rear calves and rump of the buffalo in Li Tang and Li Di’s paintings, on the other hand, are of a deep black color.

In sum, the painters of the Song and Yuan dynasties did not pay as much attention to detailing the buffalo as Ming dynasty painters, and because of this, Zhuang Shen thinks this work in the Seattle Art Museum is Ming dynasty in style —more particularly, later than the fifteenth year of the Hongzhi 弘治 reign period (1502), the date of Zhou Yong’s Herding beneath Willows柳蔭牧牛圖.

In response to Zhuang Shen, I am confident that the Seattle painting differs from the post-Southern Song works that he listed, including Zhou Yong's Herding beneath Willows柳蔭牧牛圖 (fig. 2). In Zhou Yong's painting, the way the row of trees is composed and the way the buffalo is painted lacks the skillful realism and precision of the work of Southern Song painters. It even could be said that the brushwork in Zhou’s painting was conventionalized. His rejection of the Song date based on a slightly inclined ground plane in depicting the “horizon,” a feature that he considers to have appeared only since Zhao Mengfu’s time in the Yuan period, is also unfounded, because we see the same representation of the horizon in Whiling away the summer by a lakeside retreat (Hu xiang qing xia 湖鄉清夏) attributed to Zhao Lingrang趙令穰 (fl. 1070–1100) (fig. 4). Indeed, the use of a background consisting of rows angling upward, as a composition device, is particularly indicative of the Southern Song one-corner composition. As for his observation on “circular composition,” it is not the only Song composition that I have seen, and therefore I do not agree that is a reason to reject the Song date of the Seattle painting. Now I shall discuss several widely accepted Song paintings of the same theme, and compare them to the Seattle work.

Fig. 4: Zhao Lingrang, Whiling away the summer by a lakeside retreat , 1100. © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Keith McLeod Fund, 57.724.

Southern Song Dynasty Paintings of Herding Buffalo

The herding buffalo paintings that exist from the Southern Song include the following:

1. Signed and/or dated

—Herder Returning amidst Wind and Rain (Feng yu gui mu 風雨歸牧), by Li Di, dated 1114 or 1174, National Palace Museum, Taipei.
—Boy, Buffalo, and Calf (Fang mu tu 放牧圖) signed by Li Chun 李椿, dated 1205 or 1265, Cleveland Museum of Art.
—Herder Returning amidst Snow (Xue zhong gui mu tu 雪中歸牧圖), pair of paintings signed by Li Di, Museum Yamato Bunkakan, Japan.

2. Unsigned and undated

—Herding by the Pond and Willow (Liu tang hu du 柳塘呼犢), by a Song artist, no signature, National Palace Museum, Taipei.
—Herding (Mu niu tu 牧牛圖), in the Ming xian bao hui ce名賢寶繪冊 in the first section of the Southern Song section, Osaka Municipal Museum of Art.
—Herding in Autumn (Qiu ye fangmu tu 秋野放牧圖), attributed to Yan Ciping 閻次平, Sen-oku Hakuko Kan 泉屋博古館, Kyoto.
—Herding in Rain (Kong lin yu mu tu 空林雨牧圖), private collection, Tokyo.
—Water Buffalo and Herdboys (Mu niu tu 牧牛圖), Song dynasty, Cleveland Museum of Art.
—Herding (Mu niu tu 牧牛圖), 12th c., Freer Gallery, Smithsonian Institution [which I suspect is one of the so-called ten buffalo paintings; it is very close to the style of Li Di’s Leading Buffalo homewards in the Snow (Feng yugui mu 雪中歸牧圖), The Museum Yamato Bunkakan, 12th or 13th century].

The Seattle work fits in well with this body of Southern Song works.

Another area we could examine is the technique of painting the herder boy. We are really just speaking of a very small figure painting. The brushstrokes are short and strong. Some are dingtou shuwei 鼠尾 (nail head/rat tail: large head, thin body) brushstrokes. Overall the artist portrays a poor tousled-haired boy who is concentrating on a little bird.

This style is similar to figures seen in paintings in the Ma Yuan 馬遠 (active ca. 1190–1225) style. For example, if we examine the figure of the mule driver in the small work titled Strolling in the Mountains in the Morning Snow (Xiao xue shan xing 曉雪山行) (fig. 5), National Palace Museum, Taipei, the brushstrokes make hard turns, forming right angles; in Dancing on the Mountain Path (Tage tu 踏歌圖) (fig. 6), by Ma Lin 馬麟 (active ca. 1180–after 1256), Beijing Palace Museum, the stroke movement is more fluid. The brushwork in these works also has similar dingtou shuwei (nail head/rat tail) strokes. In the case of the Seattle painting's herder boy, the outline strokes are equally angular and were executed smoothly. These paintings should be considered as belonging to the same tradition, and if this can be construed as a stylistic development, then this work should be considered as post-dating Ma Lin.

Fig. 5: Ma Yuan, Strolling in the Mountains in the Morning Snow (detail), Southern Song (1127-1279). Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei.

Fig. 6: Ma Lin , Dancing on the Mountain Path (detail), Southern Song (1127-1279). Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei.

If we compare the Seattle painting’s herder boy with the figures in Zhou Chen's Beggars and Street Characters (Liu min tu流民圖) (fig. 3), it is analogous to comparing Southern Song style works in the manner of Ma Xia to works produced by the later Ming dynasty Zhe school artists. In Zhou Chen’s depiction of the socially marginalized people, he uses thread-like strokes applied in swift and flowing motions, while the Seattle painting's artist used the style of the Southern Song known for its sharp, angled, and compact brushstrokes.

In Southern Song herding buffalo paintings, most of the greenery consists of willow trees, yet it is the Seattle work alone that has a whole row of cypress trees (Sabin Chinensis (L) Antoine). It is similar to the Southern Song painting by Li Chun titled Boy, Buffalo, and Calf(Fangmu tu 放牧圖) (fig. 7), Cleveland Museum of Art, which has tree leaves like a cypress as well as a crooked trunk and branches. In the Cleveland painting, the boy is also playing with a bird. If we look at the brush work and ink quality of the Seattle painting, the tree trunks have dark deep wash along the two edges of the trunks to give the impression of three-dimensionality. Moreover, the background dissolves in a wash of heavy mist.

Fig. 7: Li Chun, Boy, Buffalo, and Calf, 1205 or 1265. © The Cleveland Museum of Art, Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund, 1960.41.

Does this painting method provide evidence of a date for the production of this anonymous piece? What immediately comes to mind are the pieces already noted by Sherman Lee: one is in the Boston Museum of Fine Art’s collection by Zhao Lingrang titled Whiling away the summer by a lakeside retreat (fig. 4), and the painting in the Yamato Bunkakan signed by Zhao Lingrang, titled Autumn Pond (Qiu tang tu 秋塘圖), both of which are known for how the mist envelops the trees. This use of delicately graded ink wash was developed by Southern Song landscape painters, who were all known for their expressive use of wet ink.

The earliest writer to offer an in-depth discussion of mo fa 墨法 (ink techniques) was Guo Si 郭思 (d. 1130), who recorded his father Guo Xi’s 郭熙 (ca. 1001-1090) description of painting in his Lin quan gao zhi ji 林泉高致集. Guo Xi divided ink into the following categories: dan 淡 (light), nong 濃 (concentrated), jiao 焦 (“burnt” dark and dry), su 宿 (thick and dark; partly dried ink from the night before), tui 退 (faded), ai 埃 (dusty; ink made from burnt food from bottom of cooking pots)—each of which is said to have their use. In terms of describing the use of brush and ink, there were the terms wo 斡 (turn), cun 皴 (texture), ca 擦 (rub), xuan 渲 (wash), shua 刷 (stroke), zuo 捽 (daub), dian 點 (dotting), hua畫(paint).Guo Si, Lin quan gao zhi ji, in SKQS, 17, 18.

When speaking of the use of ink washes, Guo stated: “If one applies ink over water, the layering of the ink will become clear, just as if it were showing through the mist and dew.” This technique is used in Guo Xi’s famous painting Early Spring. Using wet ink to give an atmospheric impression was not evident in many painters’ works between Northern and Southern Song. For example, in Li Tang’s use of ink, you certainly do not find that effect, but in the case of Ma Yuan’s Two Cormorants on Snowy Beach (Xue tan shuang lu 雪灘雙鷺), the snowscape features layers of wash—applying a wash and then reapplying it once the ink is dry. Another work that uses this ink wash method, the painting noted above, Strolling in the Mountains in the Morning Snow, also demonstrates this expressive use of wet ink. Ma Yuan’s son Ma Lin’s painting, Spring Rain (Fang chunyu ji 芳春雨霽), takes this to a higher level. Xia Gui’s夏珪 (ca. 1194–1225) Streams in Distant Mountain (Xi shan qing yuan 溪山清遠) certainly is an example of a painting that uses ink tones to demonstrate light and shadow. The trend towards the liberal use of ink wash is something that changed in painting methods with the passage of time.

In the Seattle painting, given the row of cypress trees and the depiction of a light gauze-like mist, it is possible to locate this work in the late Southern Song after Xia Gui. It can be grouped with the Southern Song piece titled Herding (Mu niu tu 牧牛圖), in the first section of the Ming xian bao hui ce, Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, and the Cleveland Museum of Art Song painting titled Water Buffalo and Herdboys (Mu niu tu 牧牛圖) (fig. 8), all of which date to the beginning of the 13th century. The method for composing trees and branches in the Seattle work is comparable to the painting Concern for a Water-buffalo or Inquiring After the Water-buffalo (Wen chuan tu 問喘圖) (fig. 9), National Palace Museum, Taipei, although the brushwork in the Taipei painting is much more liberal and unrestrained. Based on these comparable works, I agree with Sherman Lee’s observation that the Seattle painting is datable to the Southern Song.

Fig. 8: Unknown Artist, Water Buffalo and Herdboys, Yuan dynasty (1271-1368). © The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Herbert F. Leisy in memory of his wife, Helen Stamp Leisy, 1977.200.

Fig. 9: Unknown Artist, Inquiring After the Water-buffalo, Song Dynasty (960-1279). Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei.

A final note of interest pertains to collectors' seals. In the upper left of the painting is a seal reading “Meixuan” 梅軒. The second seal on the right side reads “Zhang Wei” 張偉, and the same seal can be found in another album by Ma Yuan.The album is published in Huishu Lee’s Exquisite Moments: West Lake & Southern Song Art (New York: China Institute, 2001), cat. 15, see especially 15.4a, 15.9a, and 15.10a. I thank Dr. Joseph Chang for identifying this album with the same Zhang Wei seal. The half seal, as described above, seems like it might have the character ming 茗. If we were to take Meixuan and link it to Zhang, there is a poem in the Yuan shi xuan 元詩選 by Zhang Bochun 張伯淳 (1242–1302) titled “Wan Zhang Meixuan 挽張梅軒”.SKQS, 2.3.61. It is not clear if this in fact is the same person to whom our seals belong. If this is the case, then it would be impossible for the Seattle painting to be a Ming dynasty work. Moreover, we should consider whether this seal could belong to a Japanese collector. These speculations all remain to be verified and deserve further exploration.

© 2013 by the Seattle Art Museum