Monk Gazing at Clouds

Here, Su Renshan exploited the linear patterns and graphic forms found in woodblock prints—one of his principal sources of inspiration—to create a startlingly minimalist style. His economical drawing, more sketch than painting, conveys the artist's hand with great immediacy, but Su shows little interest in describing the mass and surface textures of his forms. Furthermore, individual motifs remain isolated, their interrelationships ambiguous. Like an opaque mist that reveals only disconnected glimpses of scenery, Su's landscape presents a composition that is fragmentary and disorienting. The artist's disregard for perspective or representational detail is underscored by his inscription, which makes clear that Su considered painting a conscious act of creation rather than an imitation of nature:

Where my brush reaches the broken cliff with a rushing waterfall,I add a figure of a monk by the rock, gazing at the clouds.

(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. 79)