Fan - Mountainous Landscape

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FROM THE BARNES FOUNDATION’S CATALOG

Wang Shimin was the eldest of the "Four Wangs" who led the Orthodox school of painting in the early Qing period. In the small format of a fan, he portrays a panoramic view of wooded mountains with a river running through the foreground. The inscription at the top indicates that Wang Shimin painted the landscape in the style of the Yuan dynasty artist Huang Gongwang (1269–1354). Reducing Huang's calligraphic style to a graphic formula, Shimin built his kinetic brushstrokes into rising and falling "breath-force" ( qishi ) movements that convey nature's boundless energy.

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