Landscape After Huang Gongwang, 1752 (ink & colour on paper)

This monumental composition pays tribute to the famous Yuan dynasty scholar-painter Huang Gongwang (1269–1354). It is an attempt to combine two of Huang’s preferred compositional methods in one landscape. One of them is pingyuan, or “level-distance” perspective, defined as looking from a place in the foreground into the far distance across a flat landscape. The other is gaoyuan, or “high-distance,” in which the viewer is placed at the bottom of a grand mountain looking up toward the summit. The painting shows a panoramic level-distance view. The spectator’s eye is carried back into the depth of the composition through clearly marked stages. A rolling outline closes the high peaks in the background to demonstrate the “high distance.”