River Crossing in Winter

This large and moody winter landscape is signed by the artist, but there is a lack of biographical information about him. One other painting known by him is in the Tianjin Museum, People’s Republic of China.The style of this landscape suggests that the artist was a professional painter, for it shows indebtedness to the early Ming dynasty Zhe school with its large land mass that twists up the left side and open right side that stretches off to the horizon. Other elements, such as the group of three trees at lower left, refer to a long visual history stretching back to the Northern Song, and the works of masters such as Guo Xi in the eleventh century. The artist also uses some of the more innovative pictorial devices that developed in the late Ming such as the contorted and folded rock masses reminiscent of those in the landscapes of Dong Qichang (1555-1636). Yet he also shows an interest in conveying a convincing recession into space. Perhaps he was a provincial painter from Anhui, slowly coming into contact with more current styles.