One Hundred Horses and the Four Seasons

The handscroll begins at the right with two stately pines trees filling the surface, skillfully setting the stage for scenery that is nearly eight meters long.
With a constant horizon and uniform height, Castiglione portrays diverse horse scenes with varying postures. 

Although the painting compositionally represents a continuation of traditional arrangements of herding horses in Chinese art, the placement and depiction of the trees and landscape elements clearly reveal the deep atmospheric effect often found in Western art.

The horizon line for the landscape is maintained at a two-thirds height throughout, creating for a complete and contiguous sense of space across the surface of the painting and the scenery.

Castiglione, however, consciously subdued the shadows for the forms to preserve their solidity but without creating a dramatic contrast between light and dark. This work can be seen as Castiglione’s way of actively integrating the qualities of two disparate painting traditions.