Scholars in a waterside villa

This pair of paintings, showing urban elites in remote mountains, is considered high caliber of literati art. The Ming-dynasty artist Xie Shichen used his vast knowledge of mountain, water, architecture, and human figures to present a depiction of the scholar’s life of seclusion in mountains. A gentleman in a white robe has just begun his climb along a narrow path. Opposite, along the rivers, men are fishing, drinking, and playing a board game within a mountain villa built on stilts. Beyond the rustic villa loom towering colossal peaks.
Xie Shichen was said to have been interested in depicting what he directly observed. Late in life, when he was unable to make arduous trips, Xie “traveled lying down,” recording the “landscape through paper windows”—in other words, he traveled in his mind and painted a record of his imagined trips.
At the top of the second painting, the artist wrote a two-line poem in cursive script describing the scene he created:
Screen-like mountain peaks across the
hanging cliffs rise from flat ground,
High towers line multistoried pavilions
that rest on opening hills.
About the Artist
Xie Shichen began his study of painting by learning the styles of Shen Zhou (1427–1509), the leading Wu school literati art master. He later launched a professional career in landscape painting by combining the literati philosophy with elements of the academic Zhe school associated with court painting.