The work of Dong Qichang, a painter, scholar, calligrapher, and art theorist of the later period of the Ming Dynasty, favors expression over formal likeness.

He also avoids anything he deems to be slick or sentimental.

This leads him to create landscapes with intentionally distorted spatial features, butl his work is in no way abstract, as it takes elements from earlier Yuan masters.

His views on expression are to have importance to later "individualist" painters.

Dong Qichang considers there to be a Northern school, represented by Zhe, and a Southern school represented by literati painters.

This name is misleading as it refers to Northern and Southern schools of Chan Buddhism thought rather than geography.

Hence, a Northern painter could be geographically from the south and a Southern painter geographically from the north.

In any event, he strongly favors the Southern school and dismisses the Northern school as superficial or merely decorative.