Guanxiu (832–912) was a wandering poet-painter-priest of the war-filled Five Dynasties period. His life had been very much like Shitao's, and he once summed up his experiences in two lines:

This is the only landscape in the album to be fully colored in rust and green (the mountain color of the poem). Despite its small size, the scenery appears truly monumental. Brushstrokes—rock outlines, texture strokes, a running stream, foliage patterns, and "moss dots"—crisscross each other, building and expanding until the whole turns into a powerful flowing design of undulating forces and counterforces.

In turning his works into abstract designs of brushstrokes and compositional movements, Shitao reflected a major seventeenth-century development: Wang Yuanqi (1642–1715), an Orthodox master, explained that in painting, "one need pay attention only to the 'breath force' and the general outlines of the design. It is not necessary to present beautiful scenery, nor is it important to follow old compositions …" In Shitao's works, however, nature always remained the source of inspiration: "Mountains and rivers compel me to speak for them; they are transformed through me and I am transformed through them." In several large compositions, datable to the late 1690s, Shitao's seal spells out his painting method: "I search out all of nature's extraordinary peaks to be my designs" (Sou jin qi feng da caogao).

To enhance the hoary and monumental quality of this landscape, the archaic "clerical" script is used. This style of writing, with its severe horizontals and verticals relieved only by flaring slanting strokes, is suitable for formal commemorative inscriptions carved in stone. The calligraphy is signed "Xiazunzhe, Yuanji" ("the blind arhat, Yuanji"), over which the square intaglio seal reads Kugua Heshang ("Monk of Bitter Melon"). The square name seals Yuanji and Shitao appear on the right side of the painting.

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