Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains
A tranquil river landscape painted over several years. The scroll was damaged in a fire in 1650 and survives in two parts, in Taipei and Hangzhou.
The brushstrokes are dry and soft – the mountain is built from rhythm, not outlines.
Huang Gongwang lived from 1269 to 1354, under the Yuan dynasty, when China was ruled by the Mongols. He had worked as an official but later withdrew and was for a time associated with Daoism. He began painting late in life. He is counted among the Four Great Masters of the Yuan dynasty. He painted Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains over several years, around 1347–1350, for a Daoist friend.
The work is a handscroll in ink on paper, originally about seven metres long. It shows the landscape along the Fuchun River in present-day Zhejiang Province. Low and high mountains follow one another along the river. There are forests, shores, small houses, bridges and fishermen in boats. The landscape changes gradually as the scroll is unrolled.
The composition is calm and rhythmic. Mountains and water alternate, and the scroll has no dramatic climax. The viewer follows the landscape as if on a walk. The scroll is an example of how Chinese landscape painters sought not to depict an exact place but to convey the feeling of an entire landscape.
Huang Gongwang used dry, soft brushstrokes with pale ink. The mountains are built up of long, parallel strokes sometimes called hemp-fibre strokes. Dots and short strokes indicate vegetation. He applied the ink in several layers over a long period. The style became a model for later literati painters, who valued personal expression and the quality of the brush above colour and detail. Huang Gongwang himself wrote a colophon on the scroll, in which he relates that he worked on it over several years, whenever he had the time and inclination.
The scroll’s fate was dramatic. In 1650 an owner lay on his deathbed and wanted the scroll burned so that he could take it with him. A relative rescued it from the fire, but by then it had burned into two parts. The shorter first part, called The Remaining Mountain, is now in the Zhejiang Provincial Museum in Hangzhou. The longer part is in the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
In the 18th century the Qianlong Emperor acquired a copy of the scroll and believed it to be genuine. He wrote many comments on it. When the genuine scroll later entered his collection, he declared it a forgery. The mistake has become a famous story about artistic judgement.
In 2011 the two parts were shown together for the first time in more than 350 years in an exhibition in Taipei. This was seen as a symbolic event in relations between China and Taiwan. The scroll is regarded as one of the most admired works in the history of Chinese art.