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What is a one-corner composition in Chinese landscape painting?

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Pure and Remote View of Streams and Mountains, detail of hand scroll in ink and paper by Xia Gui, early 13th century (Southern Song); in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan. — Xia Gui *Pure and Remote View of Streams and Mountains*, detail of hand scroll in ink and paper by Xia Gui, early 13th century (Southern Song); in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan.

In Chinese landscape painting, a "one-corner" composition is an asymmetrical style where the visual weight of the artwork is concentrated in one corner of the frame, leaving the remainder of the silk or paper bare or only slightly tinted.12

This technique, famously associated with the Ma-Xia school—which includes the artists Ma Yuan and Xia Gui—was designed to create a sense of limitless space and atmospheric depth. In these compositions, a foreground promontory, often featuring a scholar or a jutting pine tree, is separated from distant mountain silhouettes by a vast, misty expanse of emptiness.231

This approach emphasizes a romantic, poetic sensibility, utilizing simplified ink tones and powerful, angular brushwork—such as the "ax-cut" stroke—to achieve a dramatic, evocative effect.123