Tall Bamboo and Distant Mountains, after Wang Meng

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

Wang Hui studied paintings by earlier masters and digested their styles with unceasing virtuosity. He had such enduring affection for a landscape by Wang Meng 王蒙 (about 1308–85) that between 1686 and 1712, he made several copies, like this example. One of his compositional transformations here was moving the scholar from the pavilion directly into the landscape by the stream. His faithful copying also included inscriptions. Wang Meng had written that he was trying to resuscitate the style of an earlier artist, Wen Tong (1018–1079); therefore, Wang Hui sought to revive both Wang Meng and Wen Tong. As a leading figure in the Orthodox School of Chinese painting, Wang Hui believed that the act of painting was a dialogue with one or more masters of the past.