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NOTES AND QUERIES
tung for many years, and have also been regarded as founders of bird-and-flower14 painting in Kwangtung.
When the quality of the 19th century Kwangtung paintings is compared with that of 19th century Taiwan painting, it is interesting to find that the former is certainly higher than the latter. Ho Chung's case can be cited in evidence. Ho Chung travelled from Kwangtung to Taiwan sometime in the 1850's,15 and later he was naturally taken by Taiwan art historians as a representative artist of Taiwan.16 Clearly, the Taiwan art history regarded this Kwangtung artist as an artist of Taiwan just as Kwangtung art history regarded some non-Kwangtung artists as artists of Kwangtung. It seemed that in order to substantiate a more advanced level, the local art histories written in Kwangtung and Taiwan were always in favour of treating artists from other provinces who had lived in these two provinces as their own artists.
Historically, in 1895, the Ch'ing Court turned over Taiwan to Japan, but as a matter of fact, the Japanese first went to Taiwan in 1874 which was some twenty years after Ho Chung had visited that part of China. As an artist, Ho Chung must have produced some paintings in Taiwan although he might have found that it was not as convenient as in his hall on the plum blooming mountain at Nan-hai. But ever since the 1850's there were possibilities that his paintings executed in Taiwan were not only wanted by the local lovers but also being collected by the Japanese living there. As a matter of fact, according to a Japanese work on Chinese painting and calligraphy written in 1865, one painting by Ho Chung, dated 1856 by the artist's own inscription, had already been housed as a treasure by a nobleman in Japan.17
During the 19th century, Chinese paintings executed by Liang Yüan-chung and Liang Shen, both natives of Shun-te in Kwangtung, had been welcomed by overseas Chinese in Annam;18 the present-day Vietnam. However, with regard to Japan, it seemed that Ho Chung was the only 19th century Kwangtung artist being paid attention by collectors in that country. In the past, local art histories written for Kwangtung and Taiwan were unquestionably overlooked by scholars. Now judging the facts that Ho Chung's paintings were first welcomed in Taiwan and then appreciated in Japan, although Kwangtung paintings of the 19th century were less superior than the high-quality pictures done by Chiang-nan artists, yet to other areas adjacent to the continent of