Wang Jian, teacher of Wang Hui and close friend of Wang Shimin, stands at the center of the group of scholar-artists who endeavored to establish a new orthodoxy in painting through the vigorous study of past masters. In this gemlike album, Wang re-created in miniature scale the idioms of Song (960–1279) and Yuan (1279–1368) dynasty masters. Conscious of his own role as a transmitter, Wang inscribed each leaf with the name of the artist whose style he interpreted together with an appropriate couplet by the Tang dynasty poet Du Fu (712–770).