''Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains,'' a long handscroll painting done by Huang Gongwang between the ages of 80 and 82 by Chinese reckoning, depicts landscape in the area around the Fuchun River where he was traveling and residing. From right to left, the scroll follows the riverbank as hills and mountains rise and fall repeatedly with lush and dense trees. The scenery is sometimes deep and remote and at other times clear and expansive. The scroll throughout is rendered in a ''sketching-ideas'' type of freehand brushwork using monochrome ink. The application of the brush is quite calligraphic, at times gentle and serene, while at others free and untrammeled. The ink tones are rich and varied in the texturing and washes, tracing back to the simple and innocent style of Dong Yuan and Juran in the Five Dynasties and inspiring a tradition of literati painting in the following Ming and Qing dynasties. This scroll suffered fire damage in the early Qing, separating the main mountain at the beginning section of paper; hence its title, ''The Remaining Mountain'' (now in the collection of the Zhejiang Provincial Museum). After more than 360 years, this special exhibit marks the first time that it is being displayed together with the remaining six joined sections of paper in the National Palace Museum's ''Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains'' (''The Wuyong Version''), thus completing the original appearance of this masterpiece by Huang Gongwang.
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Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains (''The Master Wuyong Scroll'')Huang Gongwang (1269-1354), Yuan dynasty |
''The Master Wuyong Scroll'' version of ''Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains'' is composed of six joined pieces of paper and measures more than six meters in length. The first section of paper has traces of damage where repairs were done. Suffering from fire in 1650, the first part of the scroll was cut off (and now is in the Zhejiang Provincial Museum collection). Together with his Taoist friend Zheng Wuyong, Huang Gongwang in 1347 returned to Fuchun, starting this handscroll and completing it three to four years later. The painting features layers of brush and ink, the landscape forms outlined and washed with great variation. The mountain shapes throughout the scroll range from rounded ones up close in layers stacked to the back to gently rolling slopes and banks, and even lofty peaks, revealing a rich variety to the landscape pattern. This handscroll painting not only represents scenery of reclusion in Fuchun, it even more so reflects Huang Gongwang's idealized image of the landscape transformed through his exploration of nature. |
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Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains (''The Remaining Mountain'')Huang Gongwang (1269-1354), Yuan dynasty |
This painting once belonged to the first section of ''Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains.'' Due to fire damage in 1650, it was separated from the scroll and remounted as an individual work, later passing through the hands of different collectors. ''The Remaining Mountain'' finally entered the collection of the Zhejiang Provincial Museum in 1956. This section depicts the first mountain form among powerful peaks along the river. Huang Gongwang used gentle and elegantly long texture strokes to render the rounded forms, depicting continuous transitions of momentum in the mountains and arranging on their tops ''alum heads'' of various sizes. Concealed among the streams, valleys, and forests are people's houses, the distant trees following the undulating rise and fall of the slopes, the leaves dotted with a horizontal brush using moist ink tones. The entire work corresponds to the description by Wu Hufan in his inscription on the frontispiece; it reveals a feeling of ''Mountains and rivers powerful, grasses and trees lush.'' |
