Dwelling in the Xixia Mountains
Huang Binhong Chinese
Not on view
Huang credited his inspiration for this landscape, painted the year before he died, to Wang Wei (701–761) and Zhao Lingrang (act. ca. 1070–after 1100). The three artists grappled with the problems of how to use ink to render the complementary relationship of solid and void. The unpainted white of Huang's mountains defines their volume and the palpability of his mists creates space. The inscription reads:
Living in the Xixia mountains and viewing the peaks to the north and south at dawn, I gaze at the verdant hills and russet forests that nearly cover the village by the lakeshore. I painted this in the styles of Wang Wei and Zhao Lingrang.
(Wen Fong, trans., Between Two Cultures: Late-Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century Chinese Paintings from the Robert H. Ellsworth Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art [New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001], p. 182)
This artwork is meant to be viewed from right to left. Scroll left to view more.