This page is about Gu Yun, the Chinese

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 artist

Artist

An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

. For the member of Ice Creamusume

Ice Creamusume

Ice Creamusume is an all-girl pop group from Taiwan. They are a part of the Japanese idol group Hello! Project which is the collective of artists under contract to Up-Front Group....

, see Gu Yun (singer)

Gu Yun (singer)

Gu Yun , better known in Japan as is a member of the latest Hello! Project group, Ice Creamusume. She was announced as a winner of the Taiwan Hello! Project New Star Auditions on September 20, 2008 along with the other members of Ice Creamusume....

.

Gu Yun was a Chinese

Chinese art

Chinese art is visual art that, whether ancient or modern, originated in or is practiced in China or by Chinese artists or performers. Early so-called "stone age art" dates back to 10,000 BC, mostly consisting of simple pottery and sculptures. This early period was followed by a series of art...

 master landscape artist. His courtesy name was Ruopo (若波, “Like Waves”). His pen name was Yunhu (云壶, “Cloud Vase”).

Gu was a native of the cultural mecca of Suzhou

Suzhou

Suzhou , previously transliterated as Su-chou, Suchow, and Soochow, is a major city located in the southeast of Jiangsu Province in Eastern China, located adjacent to Shanghai Municipality. The city is situated on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and on the shores of Taihu Lake and is a part...

, but eventually joined the community of artists in Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

. He must have had access to local collections of old masters because his paintings show a mastery of classical themes. His paintings clearly show a profound respect for and influence from 17th century academic masters such as the “Four Wangs” and others. Gu's works are noted for the distinctive use of ink tones, although some criticized his work as lacking in vitality. He traveled to Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 in 1888 where he sojourned at the official Qing Embassy. On his journey to Kyoto

Kyoto

is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...

, Gu nearly forced by a flood to remain at Nagoya. This was a loss for Japanese art that happened in 1889. After his death, Gu’s reputation soared, but unfortunately the best collection of his landscapes in Japan perished in the fires of the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923. Noted works of the artist are extant there however. A printed selection of his paintings appeared in 1926.