Stone Coffin Carved with Story of Wang Lin, a Filial Son

 Scholars debate the techniques behind the depth in these artworks. The stone coffin painting depicts filial son Wang Lin rescuing his brother from bandits. A large tree divides the composition into two parts. On the left, Wang Lin begs the bandits to release his brother. On the right, they depart. The focus is on both the story and visual patterns. The bandits emerge from a deep valley on the left, while the characters move towards another valley on the right, directing the viewer's gaze towards the deep valley they are about to enter.

Northern Wei (386-535) Stone Carving. Unearthed in Luoyang, Henan Province. Collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, USA.

This piece is compiled from the Chinese edition of Three Thousand Years of Chinese Painting by Foreign Languages Press and Yale University Press, translated by Chen Ying.