Landscapes dated 1668 Xiao Yuncong Chinese Xiao Yuncong was born into a gentry family in the town of Wuhu, Anhui Province, but for most of his career he resided in Nanjing, only fifty-five miles downriver. Between 1636 and 1642 Xiao and his two younger brothers prepared for the provincial-level civil-service examinations in Nanjing, where they also became political activists, joining the Fushe Revival Society,” which sought to revive antique moral standards as a remedy for government factionalism and corruption. The fall of the Ming dynasty in 1644 ended Xiao’s government ambitions. Unwilling to serve under the Manchus, Xiao supported himself as a painter. The present album, executed when Xiao was seventy-two, exemplifies his painterly abilities at their peak. Xiao expertly applied delicate colored washes and monochrome texturing to model landscape forms and suggest the veiling effects of atmosphere. Although Xiao’s images allude to antique models of the Song and Yuan dynasties, these