Muqi Fachang, abbot of a Chan temple in the Song capital of Hangzhou and a renowned master of the vigorous, intuitive style of the Chan school, produces a series of ink monochrome masterpieces characterized by rapid and spontaneous brushwork.

Muqi's artwork covers a wide range of subjects, including portraits, landscapes, and still lifes.

Chinese Chan monk Wuxue Zu'yuan accepts an invitation to head the newly built Engaku-ji monastery in Kamakura.

It resident artists will create a significant new impetus in religious painting with the consequent transmission of the Song monastic architectural style and various Chan painting styles later associated with Japanese Zen Buddhism, notably the highly personalized portraits of Zen masters (“chinso”).A lively tradition of realistic portraiture emerges in painting during Japan’s Kamakura period, paralleling the trend toward greater realism and humanism in sculpture.

The biographies of famous evangelist priests become a popular subject of scroll painting.

New developments in narrative hand scrolls include a focus on the vigorous depiction of military history and on the vivid and occasionally bizarre portrayal of Buddhist hell scenes.

The new form of painting called “nise-e” ("likeness paintings") that emerges during the Kamakura period fully expresses the personalities of great generals,members of the aristocracy, and even the emperor.