View of Qixia

清朝恬猞繪棲棢勝椺圖焈絹本水墨
This painting's landscape forms were built up in layers using the "accumulated ink" technique. The result here is rich and dark, with strong tonal contrasts. This sense of form, in which the artist models forms with light and shade as well as a suggestion of atmosphere and depth, points to an awareness of European art. Gong Xian was active in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, where Jesuit missionaries were a presence starting in the early 1600s. A number of Gong's paintings suggest his knowledge of the illustrated books these missionaries carried with them.
For Gong, landscape painting served as a physical and psychological retreat from everyday reality, specifically the turmoil in the period from the end of the Ming dynasty through the establishment of the Qing.
Artist's biography:
Gong Xian was originally from Kunshan, also in Jiangsu province. He is considered one of the Eight Masters of Jinling (the ancient name for Nanjing). He was active in scholarly and political as well as art circles. Near the end of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) he was associated with a group of scholars in and around Nanjing who attempted to reform the decaying Ming government. After the fall of city to the Manchus, Gong refused to serve the foreign-ruled government of the Qing dynasty and spent much of his time in seclusion in his garden in Nanjing (the former Ming capital), making some income from selling his paintings. Interested in painting theory, history, and practice, Gong was not modest about his work, claiming that "landscapes [as good as mine] have never been seen in times before me and will not be seen in times after me."