The Mongol emperors of Yuan dynasty, following the tradition of a people who won their empire on horseback, looked down upon scholars who were thus driven to use their talent in drama and painting. The four landscape masters of the era were Huang Kung-wang, Wang Meng, Ni Tsan and Wu Chen. They had in common a "dry" technique in wielding the brush. Ni was especially famous for his reticent and delicate style which leaves much to suggestion. Chao Meng-fu, though a scion of the royal house of Sung, held official posts at the Yuan court and thus incurred the censure of historians. His paintings were rich and beautiful. The Ming critic Tung Chi-chang once said, "Chao Meng-fu had the grace of the Tang artists without their meticulosity, and the strength of the Sung masters without their coarseness."
Wang Cheng-peng, another Yuan artist, specialised in architectural painting, combining perspective with detail. His Regatta on the Dragon Lake gave viewers a glance of the resplendent court life, so vividly described by Marco Polo.
As in ceramics and other arts, the Ming and Ching dynasties saw mere improvement in the techniques of painting, characterized at the same time by a gradual fading out of the originality and the interior glow which marked the earlier dynasties. Conservatism reigned supreme. It was also during the Ming dynasty that the firm tradition of wen-jen-hua, meaning "learned man's painting"" won its battle against the professional painters of the revived Academy of Painting at the Ming court.