This lined blank Tao-Art Journal glorifies ink landscape painting, at its very finest, in the Sung Dynasty Tao-Artist tradition. Featuring reproductions from River Landscape in Sunset Glow by the renowned Tao-Artist Lin, this Coptically Stitched journal is a certain masterpiece in its own right. Great for journaling on the go, the hand-stitched binding allows every page to lay perfectly flat. The Sunset Landscape Ma Lin Tao Journal also features a Expanding Souvenir Pouch at the back to keep all of those loose odds and ends in one easy-to-access place, and an elastic end-leaf enclosure to mark your place or enclose the entire book. Ideal with our genuine bamboo pens. Also available in an unlined version perfect for free-form writing or a finely-milled version ideal for drawing.

Front Cover Close up: Sunset Landscape Ma Lin Tao Journal.

Back Cover View: Sunset Landscape Ma Lin Tao Journal.

Sunset Landscape Ma Lin Tao Journal Details
Measuring 7 x 9 x .6 inches, the journals covers are high quality, silky smooth, matte varnish finished Tao-Art reproductions of River Landscape in Sunset Glow mounted on archival boards, traditionally hand-bound in a Coptic fashion. Inside are 128 softly lined, wide-ruled, archival quality, pH balanced, acid-free, lignin-free, cream colored pages; and in the back is a handy Expanding Souvenir Pouch, all held together with an elastic closure.

About the Tao-Artist Lin
Tao-Artist Lin (1194-1264), son of the grand master teacher and painter Ma Yuan, lived in Hangchow, China. Lin and his father Ma Yuan were by far the most important and appreciated in a long family line of influential and prominent painters. A master painter of landscapes, Tao-Artist Lin also liked to pair poetry, written by prominent writers at the time, along with his works. Included in Chinese and in English, on the journal artwork, is a poem by Tang Dynasty Poet and Tao-Artist Wang Wei with reads:

Mountains hold
the autumn colors near;
Swallows cross
the evening sun slowly.

Lin was especially known for having great influence in the Tao-Art movement specifically in the painting of asymmetrical images, especially sky, water, and clouds often with abbreviated brushwork and evocative washes of ink. The asymmetry of River Landscape in Sunset Glow gives great focus to the smoky sunset that, in a most uncomfortable way, obliterates the distinction between sky and water; only when the observer draws their attention away and to the shoreline, or upon closer observation to the tiny Swallows that glide in the foreground, does one take comfort. The original work was produced in ink and color on silk album leaf mounted together with calligraphy, in a hanging scroll.

Typical of his best work and beautifully reproduced in a silky matte finish on the journals front and back covers, Sunset Landscape Ma Lin Tao Journal is the quintessential Tao-Art masterpiece. In virtually indistinguishable and nearly continuous brushstroke, Lin paints River Landscape in Sunset Glow with such solitude, majesty, and distinction; bringing focus to the harmonization of one’s personal being with the natural harmony and justice of nature. The best Tao-Art reveals inexhaustible nothingness; Nature is stabilized by order, and everything, humans included, exist within Nature. Through Tao-Art we see that the universe is singular and can't be divided. Trying to change Nature, especially through art, would ruin it–just as trying to paint every possible detail into a sunset would spoil it–we must understand and be in harmony with Nature's essence.

Detailed View: Using the River Landscape in Sunset Glow Expanding Souvenir Pouch.

Detailed Spine View: Coptic Book Binding Benefits.

Close up View (above): River Landscape in Sunset Glow Coptic Book Binding Hand-stitching Detail.

Benefit of Coptic Book Binding: Lays Perfectly Flat for Ease of Writing.