Pavilion in Lofty Mountains

A native of Putian, Fujian province, Li Zai was summoned to the court during the Ming reign of Xuande to render his service along with painting masters such as Xie Huan, Ni Duan, Shi Rui and Dai Jin at the Hall of Benevolence and Wisdom (Renzhi Dian). In East Asia, his reception is evidenced by an encomium on the painting Landscape in Broken Ink (Tokyo National Museum) by Sesshū Tōyō in which the prominent Japanese monk-painter from the Muromachi period (1336-1573) is proud to acknowledge his tutelage in the use of color and broken ink under the renowned painter while in China.

The present specimen successfully celebrates the eclectic mixture of the painting traditions of both the Northern and the Southern Songs. On the right in the foreground, the straggly trees leaning towards the left guides the viewer’s eye to the traveler and his boy servant on the bridge, seemingly leading the viewer into the artist’s ideal world. Evoking those in Northern Song paintings, the imposing main mountain is off-centered to give way to the receding river and distant mountains to emphasize perspective. To close the gap between the viewer and the painting and to add life to the landscape, all the figures engaged in different activities have been blown out of proportion, whether it is the travelers with a wide-brimmed rain hat and a staff emerging from behind the mountain in the center, the visitors to a pavilion which is maintained by a sweeper in the middle-ground, or the scholars reading inside a riverside pavilion at the foot of the mountains. Like Li Zai’s other works Seclusion in the Mountains and Mountain Hamlet, the composition is made up of motifs including an untamed mountain mass in the background, pines enveloped in mists in the middle-ground, straggly trees and figures in diverse activities. Yet the texturing is moister such that the scrolling-cloud texture strokes for the rocks bleed into and blend with the washes. A less common feature among the painter’s extant hanging scrolls is the two pine trees rising from an outcrop on the right in the foreground, inviting comparison with Southern Song paintings.