Ma Yuan is of one of China"s best-known artists, and a major figure in the golden era of Chinese landscape painting. The Heart of Ma Yuan offers a careful discussion of his painting as it emerged within the sophisticated environment of Hangzhou in the late 12th and early 13th centuries. Covering a vast range of subject matter, the book includes chapters on Ma Yuan"s family, his patrons and style, and a methodical examination of specific works in Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist genres; landscapes, animals and birds, selected branches of flowers, and detailed studies of water. Richard Edwards was professor of far Eastern art at the University of Michigan from 1960-87."Ma Yuan emerges as an artist who captures the reality of season, time, and mood in a dazzlingly abbreviated style that is nonetheless utterly convincing in its rendering of the natural world." -Maxwell K. Hearn, Metropolitan Museum of Art.