Ma Yuan or Ma Yüan (active 1190?-1235?), Chinese landscape painter, whose paintings, along with those of Xia Gui (Hsia Kuei), represent the culmination of the Southern Song style; followers of the two artists were termed the Ma-Xia School (Ma-Hsia School). Born into a famous family of painters, Ma became a leader of the imperial painting academy at Hangzhou (Hangchow). His work represented a new style in painting—lyrical, evocative, restrained—in contrast to the more grandiose style of earlier centuries.

The most striking characteristic of Ma’s monochromatic ink paintings is their asymmetrical composition: The principal forms of the picture—trees, rocks, and human figures—are grouped in a lower corner. He achieved a balanced asymmetry, in which the blank areas of his paintings focus attention on the subject and at the same time suggest a limitless expanse of space. To link the two sections of the picture, he often used the device of a tree branch painted diagonally into or across the empty space. Ma’s ink technique in these works is faultless, equally distinguished for the evenness and control of the broad washes and the precision and clarity of the sharp "ax stroke" brushwork. His highly popular works were often copied, even forged, which today makes positive authentication difficult; one painting widely accepted as his is Bare Willows and Distant Mountains (late 12th century, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts). Ma was a dominant influence on later Chinese painting and on Japanese art.