Particularly during the Song dynasty, painters would make careful observations of the natural world in an effort to capture "the nature of things" -- whether their topic was a sparrow or lotus, or nature's essence as found in a grand landscape.
尤其是宋代，畫家們在「格物」精神下，不論是一隻小麻雀或是一朵芙蓉，或宇宙自然山水，皆仔細的觀察。