Lofty Mount Lu

This painting is about 2 meters in height. According to the inscription, it is painted by Shen Zhou, the leader of Wumen (today’s Suzhou) school, to celebrate his teacher Chen Kuan’s 70 years old birthday. The painting had been carefully considered in its selection of painting materials, composition and painting style. The painting portrays Mount Lu’s lofty hills and waterfalls. At the foot of mountain, there is a literati looking up at the cloud-kissing peaks. Mount Lu is located near Chen Kuan’s hometown; Shen Zhou took it as description object and adopted high-distant drawing method of "looking up to the mountain top from the foot of the mountain" (from "Lin Quan Gao Zhi"). It was obviously an expression of the student’s admiration for his teacher. As for painting techniques, it mainly adopts Wang Meng’s typical texturing method（Jiesuo Cun）. This is, on one hand, because Wang Meng’s meticulous painting is suitable for highlighting the dense vegetation on Mount Lu, and on the other hand, because Chen Kuan’s father Chen Ji was a good friend of Wang Meng, Shen Zhou tried to show his teacher Chen Kuan’s status as the orthodox successor of literati painting in Yuan Dynasty, which must have played a key role in his selection of drawing method.