Landscape

From the Minneapolis Institute of Art record

The theme of “dwelling in mountains” is a time-honoured one in the Chinese painting tradition, and expresses the desire to escape from the burdens of society and retreat into a solitary life within nature. Here, Wang Jian, the paramount member of a group of highly respected Qing dynasty painters known as the Four Wangs (along with Wang Shimin, 1592-1680; Wang Hui, 1632-1717; and Wang Yuanqi, 1642-1715), has rendered this theme in monochrome ink with subtle, complex brushwork. The scene begins at the path in the lower right corner, leading to the thatched huts shrouded by trees along the right border of a river. Across the bridge, the composition leads the viewer’s eye to a scholar-hermit’s house near a waterfall. The scene ascends along the trees and bare ridge up to the highest point of the mountains on the left side. With this composition, the artist has skillfully incorporated two separate perspectives within the same composition: gaoyuan, or “high-distance” perspective, in which the viewer is placed at the bottom of a grand mountain, looking up toward the summit; and pingyuan, or “level-distance” perspective, in which the viewer looks from the foreground into the far distance across a flat landscape. China