Chinese Painting Hand-scroll Copy Model A* 5 Xi Mountain and Qingyuan Picture SongA*Xiagui

Xi Mountain and Qingyuan Picture, on paper, black, 46.5 cm in length and 889.1 cm in width, now in the National Palace Museum in Taipei, is a long scroll of landscape. Its unique painting style is comparable to the blue and green landscapes of Wang Ximeng of the Northern Song Dynasty. The painter Xia Gui arranged the scenery with his familiar composition form of upper and lower realities. The hillsides, boulders, river banks, trees, bridges, etc. depicted are all concentrated in the lower part of the picture. The scene of the picture is open, giving people the feeling of climbing up and looking down. In the upper part of the painting, light pen and ink are used to express distant mountains, or large blanks are left to express river water, smoke and clouds. And cleverly use people, temples, boat bridges, etc. to connect the nearby slope rocks and the distant mountains. Compared with Wang Ximeng's The Vast Land, Xia Gui* highlights the close-up depiction, which is the difference between the two. In the usage of brush and ink, although Xia Gui and Ma Yuan are both called "e;Ma Xia"e;, in fact, Xia Gui's ink technique is more sophisticated than Ma Yuan*. The whole painting is strong and steady, and the hillside is drawn with a long line. The lines are simple and loose. Because it uses *a lot of water, it has the effect of dripping ink. Its unique texture is called "e;dragging mud with water"e; or "e;water axe"e;, leaving an unforgettable impression.