Page:Frank Owen - The Scarlett Hill, 1941.djvu/93

RV 88 (THE PEAR GARDEN) a picture. The Emperor was disgruntled because his instructions had not been carried out.

Wu Tao-tzu bowed in utmost humility.

"I have it all in my heart."

Thereafter he departed to a small hut near the river's edge to meditate in solitude, until one morning when the mood was upon him, he threw off "a hundred miles of painting."

Wu Tao-tzu painted over two hundred and fifty pictures on the walls of Temples. These pictures were worked out to the finest details, stupendously realistic. When it rained, mists gathered on the mountains in his pictures. "His dragons shook the air; his men and women breathed, charmed, awed, ennobled." One of the mythical stories of his career is worthy of recounting. Ming Huang commissioned him to paint a landscape on one of the walls of the palace. Wu asked for absolute privacy and solitude while the work was in progress. The Emperor acquiesced, as he usually did with the whims of artists. Thereupon curtains were hung to conceal the painting and eunuchs were placed on guard to see that Wu was not disturbed.

At last, the painting was finished, a scene to enchant the eye and make description impotent—a broad sweep of pastoral landscape, mountains, and woodland in which birds could be heard singing. The sun was warm and from a dark maze of bushes came the lazy drum of crickets.

Ming Huang, conscious of the increased warmth of the air, fanned himself languidly to call the wind. It RV 88 (88)