Sunset at Huawu

This landscape is by Yun Shouping (1633–1690), one of the Six Great Painters from the early Qing dynasty. The soft sunrays of evening bathe the Jiangnan riverside; the scene being skillfully represented in pale tints in an impressionistic style. The second character, wu, of the painting’s title in Chinese, Huawu xiyang, means ‘embankment’, and is taken from one line of a poem by Yan Wei (713–?), a poet from the height of the Tang dynasty, that was sent to Liu Changqing: “Willows on the dike as the spring waters overflow, flowers on the bank in the lingering light of evening.”
Yun Shouping was from Jiangsu, Piling (Wujin, present-day Changzhou). He originally had the name Ge, then assumed the style Shouping. He had several aliases as well, such as Nantian and Baiyun Waishi. As he remained ideologically faithful to the former Ming dynasty, he experienced great difficulties in the new dynasty, nonetheless he persisted in adhering to an upright honesty.
This painting imitates a work by Huichong (?–1017), a painter-poet monk from the early Northern Song dynasty who was known for his small landscapes; the painting in question also having the same title. Tang Banyuan (alias Yuzhao, 1602–1672), an art critic, collector of paintings, and literatus, was from the same Wujin region as Yun Shouping. Yun Shouping and his friend, Wang Hui (1632–1717), would visit Banyuan on a regular basis, and he developed his talents there. Having established a deep friendship with Wang Hui, who excelled at landscape painting, Yun Shouping reputedly devoted himself to paintings of birds and flowers, as he was embarrassed to be seen as a lesser painter than Wang Hui. Nevertheless, with this landscape of pale tints, Yun Shouping’s natural talents as a colorist are amply present.
On a related note, Dan’an, who spoke highly of this painting, was a literatus also from this region. During the Shunzhi era (1644–1661), he was also known as Zhuang Jiongsheng (1627–1679) and as somebody who had passed the examination for the Ministry of Ceremonies. Luo Zhenyu (1866–1940), a retainer of the Qing court, fled China and brought this painting and others to Japan in 1912.