Kao Lun (12 October 1879-22 June 1951), known as Kao Chien-fu, artist. He was a leader of the Lingnan-p'ai [Lingnan school] of painting, which combined Japanese, Western, and Chinese painting techniques and which placed new emphasis on realism.

P'anyü, Kwangtung, was the birthplace of Kao Chien-fu. He was the fourth of six sons to be born to Kao Pao-hsiang, a physician interested in art. Kao Chien-fu's two younger brothers were Kao Ch'i-feng (Kao Weng, q.v.) and Kao Chen-wei (T. Chien-tseng). At the age of five, Kao Chien-fu began his primary education in the Chinese classics. A few years later, after both of his parents died, he went to live with an uncle who was a physician and a painter. Kao worked in his uncle's medicine shop and le;arned the rudiments of painting. When he was 12, he was sent to study under the well-known Cantonese artist Chü Lien (18281904). He lived in the Chü household, but his relations with some members of the family were far from cordial. A year later, he went to live with an uncle who was a military physician at the Whampoa Naval Academy. He enrolled at the academy, but had to drop out because of illness.

In 1894 Kao Chien-fu returned to Canton to study under Chü Lien. He came to know Wu Te-i (T. I-chuang), a wealthy trader and art collector who also was studying under Chü Lien. Kao increased his knowledge of painting by copying many Sung and Yüan works in ^Vu's collection. In 1895, with financial support from the W'u family, he studied Western painting under a French artist at Canton Christian College, the predecessor of Lingnan University. He then became an art teacher in an elementary school, where one of his colleagues was the Japanese artist Yamamoto Baigai, who taught him Japanese.

In 1898, at the age of 19, Kao Chien-fu went to Japan, where he studied Japanese painting techniques and joined such organizations as the White Horse Society, the Pacific Painting Society, and the Watercolor Study Association. He managed to sell enough paintings to support himself. In 1902 he returned to China and taught drawing at the Kwangtung-Kwangsi Advanced Institute of Technology. He made a second trip to Japan in 1904 to study at the Tokyo Academy of Fine Arts. He joined the T'ung-meng-hui and helped to establish a branch of the party at Canton after returning there in 1906. His firm support of the anti- Manchu revolution led him to stage mock funerals to smuggle ammunition into Canton. After 1911, Kao Chien-fu and his brother Kao Ch'i-feng established such enterprises in Shanghai as the Sheng-mei shu-kuan, which was an art publishing house, and the Chen-hsiang hua-pao {Revue Artistique de la Realite) , which was the first photographic magazine to be published in China. During this period, Kao Chien-fu's paintings were exhibited in Tokyo, Kobe, Seoul, Shanghai, Nanking, Hong Kong, and Canton. In 1916 he established the Ch'un-shui School of Painting in Canton. In 1921 he organized a provincial art exhibit, the first of its kind, at Canton; and eight years later he directed China's first national art exhibit, which was held at Nanking.

About 1931 Kao traveled to Burma, India, Ceylon, Persia, and Egypt. In the Himalayas he received leg injuries during a snow storm and eye injuries from glare. After returning to China, he wrote several books about his travels abroad, including Fo-kuo chi [an account of the Buddhist countries], Yin-tu i-shu [the art of India], and Hsi-ma-la-ya-shan tiyen-chiu [a study of the Himalayas]. Beginning in the 1930's he taught at National Sun Yat-sen University and headed the Municipal Academy of Fine Arts in Canton. In addition, he continued to direct the Ch'un-shui School of Painting. In 1935 he took a leave of absence to teach at National Central University in Nanking, where he founded the Ya-feng-she [Asian wind society]. During the Sino-Japanese war, he journeyed through west China and painted many landscapes and war scenes. Kao Chien-fu, Kao Ch'i-feng and their associates and students came to be referred to as the Lingnan-p'ai, or Lingnan school. Among the many students who studied at the Ch'unshui School of Painting under Kao Chien-fu were Li Hsiung-ts'ai, Fang Jen-tung (1903-), Kuan Shan-yüeh (1910-), and Yu Yüan-shan. Kao exempted poor students from tuition, and even provided some of them with lodgings, food, and pocket money. Painters of the Lingnan School combined traditional composition and brushwork with Japanese and Western techniques. In IVo-ti hsien-tai kuo-huakuan [my views on modern Chinese painting], a lecture delivered at Nanking in 1935 and published in 1955, Kao Chien-fu stated that foreign influences had affected the development of traditional Chinese painting and that modern Chinese artists should combine the brush techniques and the vitality of spirit of Chinese painting with such Western ideas as shading, perspective, and atmosphere. The new Chinese painting, which Kao termed hsin-kuo-hua, should emphasize not only form and technique but also the subject matter and motive for painting. To achieve this goal, such modern objects as airplanes, railroads, telephone poles, and human figures in modern dress should be depicted. For example, in 1915 he had painted a traditional-style hanging scroll, "Two Monsters of Heaven and Earth," which depicted an airplane and a tank. He considered this commentary on the First World War to embody revolutionary spirit. During the 1920's Kao sought to revitalize Chinese art by advocating i a fresh study of the art of Sung and Yüan times and of the wen-jen-hua [gentlemen's painting], establishing in turn the Hsin Sung Yüan p'ai [new school of Sung and Yüan painting] and the Hsin wen-jen-hua p'ai or [new school of gentlemen's painting]. During the Sino-Japanese war, Kao and his students emphasized realism, painting war scenes of bombing, refugees, and city ruins. Two published collections of Kao's paintings are Wa-sheng chi and Chien-fu hua chi. ^Vorking in the tradition of Chinese painting, Kao Chien-fu and his followers of the Lingnan school were notable for three distinguishing characteristics: most of them were connected with Canton revolutionaries; almost all had studied at one time in Japan; and almost all aimed at a synthesis of traditional, Japanese, and Western values in painting. In technique, the Lingnan school's handling of perspective, atmosphere, and chiaroscuro derived from Western practice. Their brushwork was Chinese, while a tendency to purely decorative effect and a smooth, oily surface texture revealed Japanese influences. The ultimate aim of the Lingnan painters was to bring a new kind of subject matter within the orbit of the traditional medium, and the major effort of the Lingnan school was to efTect an intellectual synthesis of traditional and international values. The results were often labored, and Kao's precepts cannot be said to have solved the problems of content and form for modern Chinese painters. Nonetheless, Kao Chien-fu's work as both artist and teacher had a considerable influence on Chinese art. He died in Macao on 22 June 1951. He was survived by his second wife, Weng Hsiuchih ; his son, Kao Li-chieh ; and his daughter, Kao Li-hua (Diana Kao). His first wife. Sung Ming-huang, died in Hong Kong in 1938.