Viewing Plum Blossoms at Shizhuchong

This landscape typifies a particular manner of Nanjing painting from the second half of the seventeenth century, in which misty atmosphere combines with convincing spatial recession to create a dreamy quality that nevertheless carries a strong sense of realism. Wang Gai was not the only painter to work in this mode; his contemporaries Fan Qi, Gao Cen, and Ye Xin did so as well. But Wang was especially versatile—so much so that he was hired to illustrate the Mustard Seed Garden Painting Manual, a guide for aspiring painters and connoisseurs that covered a range of historical styles.