Lotus Peak

This small album leaf, which depicts one of the principal peaks of Yellow Mountain, resembles a sketch from nature in its sensitively drawn contours. Done when the artist was nearly eighty, it eschews the bravura brushwork of a decade earlier in favor of juxtaposed areas of ink wash and uninked paper that create the effect of sun and shadow, white clouds and verdant valleys. This experimentation with Western ideas and techniques, reflected in Liu Haisu's drawing style and in his strongly contrasted areas of light and dark, was a way of liberating him-self from traditional constraints. His inscription reads:

"I haven't painted for a long time. [My brush] has grown cold and clumsy. It is a pleasure to wash away [styles] of the past and present."

(Robert H. Ellsworth et al., trans., Later Chinese Painting and Calligraphy, 1800-1950, 3 vols. [New York: Random House, 1987], vol. 1, p. 212).