Ma Lin (painter)

Ma Lin (simplified Chinese: 马麟; traditional Chinese: 馬麟; pinyin: Mǎ Lín; Wade–Giles: Ma Lin) (c. 1180 – after 1256^[1]) was a Chinese court painter during the Song dynasty active during the early to mid 13th century.^[2] He was the son of the famous Chinese painter Ma Yuan,^[3] from whom he learned the art of painting.^[4]

One of his best known paintings is Night Outing with Candles, which depicts a gentleman sitting in the doorway of a pavilion, facing four pairs of tall candles amongst flowering crab apple trees. It illustrates a poem by the famous (dissident poet and artist) Su Shi: "My fear is that in the depths of night, the flowers will fall asleep and depart, so I light the tall candles to illuminate their red beauty.".^[5] A full moon in the sky overhead confirms its nighttime setting.