The West Lake landscape painting is the main subject of the West Lake paintings,also the best embodiment of the characteristics of the West Lake and its historic humanistic values.By taking the historical transition of the West Lake landscape painting as a clue,this paper combs the West Lake landscape paintings before the Ming dynasty from three aspects:the origin of the West Lake landscape paintings(Tang dynasty to Northern Song dynasty),the acme of realism,the first flourishing era of the West Lake landscape paintings(Southern Song dynasty) and its short decline(Yuan dynasty).Due to the rarity of the existing paintings,the research on the West Lake landscape paintings before Ming dynasty can only emphasize on the literature;hoping to grasp its transitional patterns and demonstrating sharply its relation with society and other cultural factors in particular historical context.This paper emphasizes on the research into the West Lake landscape paintings of the Ming and Qing dynasties.In these two periods,either the number of existing paintings or the number of participating artists exceeded previous dynasties,the extension of the themes and the uniqueness of individual experience were more manifest,in particular the late Ming dynasty period and the time under the reign of the three emperors of Qing dynasty(Kangxi emperor to Qianlong emperor).The late Ming dynasty period with the diversification of the forms of individuality and the time of the three Qing emperors with significant number of participating artists and circulating paintings were said to be two flourishing eras after the Southern Song dynasty.This article selected some archetypically meaningful artists with actual corresponding West Lake landscape paintings as references,including Dai Jin,the founder of "Zhejiang School" in early Ming dynasty;Shen Zhou,the founder of "Wu Schooi" in middle Ming dynasty and Dong Qichang,the leader of "Songjiang School" in late Ming dynasty;Li Liufang,one of "Nine Pals in the Painting";Lan Ying,the leader of "Wulin School" and professor Chen Hongshou who was closely related to the West Lake landscapes.The Qing dynasty part includes Wang Yuanqi,the leader of "Loudong School"; Dong Bangda,a scholar-artist highly favoured by Qianlong emperor and Dai Xi who was quite influential in the Daoguang,Xianfeng periods of Qing dynasty.This article goes through and investigates the profuse changes of the West Lake landscape paintings during Ming and Qing dynasties by taking the individual painting creation experience of those aforementioned artists as a clue.The descriptive discussion of the West Lake landscape paintings among the prints of Ming and Qing dynasties and those possessed by Japan is also attached.Hence,the traces in the distributional process of the West Lake culture and its representative position in China perceived by the foreigners can then be seen. dedecms.com