Emperor Huizong of Song

Huizong ruled northern China in the early 12th century, and he was one of the most gifted artists ever to sit on a throne, which turned out to be part of his undoing. As the eighth Song emperor he poured himself into painting, poetry and calligraphy while affairs of state drifted.

He invented a calligraphic style so fine and sharp it is called Slender Gold, the strokes like twists of gold wire. He built a vast imperial collection, catalogued thousands of paintings, and turned the court art academy into a serious school, even setting exams where painters had to illustrate a line of poetry. Delicate studies of birds and flowers survive under his name, whether from his own hand or his workshop.

While he refined all this, the Jurchen armies of the northern Jin dynasty were closing in. In 1126 they overran the Song capital, and Huizong, who had hastily abdicated, was carried off into captivity in the far north, where he died a prisoner in 1135. The empire he had adorned so beautifully had collapsed around him.