Abstract: South and North Sect of Landscape Painting used two types of meditation, insight enlightenment and gradual enlightenment to signify two different painting styles in Chinese painting history. Initiated by Dong Qichang, a landscape painter in later Ming dynasty, South and North Sect of Landscape Painting became the partition criterion of two different schools of painting. This system praised South Sect Landscape Painting highly and suppressed North Sect Landscape Painting. Therefore, South Sect Landscape Painting became the main stream, Scholars Painting. Its aesthetic style of gentle,lightness in color, clear and pure, quiet and silent, natural, artless became the aesthetic purport of Scholars Painting of different epochs. The philosophy of Scholars Painting mainly derived from Lao-Zhuang philosophy whose style of lightness in color in poetic influenced Scholars Painting deeply.

Key words: South and North Sect of Landscape Painting, Scholars Painting, the style of lightness in color