Landscape: The tradition of painting mountains and waters
Huang Xiangjian (Chinese, 1609-1673)
Scenery on the San-tu Pass
Dated 1657
Hanging scroll
77 x 22 1/2 in.
Gift of Nancy Seiberling
In memory of Frank Seiberling
Scenery on the San-Tu Pass, an ink and color painting, is part of a group of writings and paintings commemorating Huang Xiangjian’s perilous journey to retrieve his parents from the war-torn southern Chinese province of Yunnan. Both the series of paintings, and the writings that document their travels in relation with the paintings, serve as a physical record of the family’s journey and their responses to their situation. Given the dynastic shift happening at the time the area was rampant with conflicts caused by different political alliances making travel exceedingly unsafe. Journeying through these lands, Huang Xiangjian shows his filial commitment and bravery, which after returning home, he capitalized on to drum up support and funds for his family.[1]
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This piece connects to the exhibition through the brushwork. The textural strokes in Scenery on the San-Tu Pass play a large role in the storytelling in Huang’s work. Large, even washes of ink create a background and base for the smaller details in the foreground. Values are built up to insinuate some depth, although there is no constituted effort at modeling or realism. The figure at the bottom is intentionally created from only a few strokes, devoid of detail because the focus is not the character, it is the journey. This is a common trait through the series, although the number of figures differs depending on if his parents appear in the scene.
​​As such, there is much more care given to depicting the land. Although it is not depicted as it would be seen in real life, the form of the rocks and the winding of the thin path helps communicate the perilous, lost feeling that Huang might have felt as he took this journey. Care is taken in the small dapples that make up the canopies of the trees, thin, slow strokes drip down to make trunks. The outlines of craggy rock formations are made by jagged, tapered lines that layer one over the other.
Something unusual about this piece and the others in this series, is that it is based off a real place. In traditional Chinese landscape painting, it is unusual that a painting portrays a real location, since landscape paintings were supposed to speak more to the artist’s interpretation and concept of a landscape than an actual place. However, Huang Xiangjian chose to show real places to depict his path and the trials he faced along the way in a storytelling manner.
Through the production of these works, Huang Xiangjian connected with the cultural appreciation of familial commitment. Because the family was effectively poor upon returning home, Huang felt the need to provide income efficiently. To do this, he produced numerous paintings about his journey, sticking to a few uniform compositions with different subjects to quickly make quality works.[2] Through the creation and distribution of these emotional works, Huang Xiangjian saved his family and earned his place in art history.
Sam Schuster
[1] Elizabeth Kindall, Geo-narratives of a filial son: the paintings and travel diaries of Huang Xiangjian (1609-1673) (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Asia Center, 2016).
[2] Elizabeth Kindall, “The Paintings of Huang Xiangjian’s Filial Journey to the Southwest,” Artibus Asiae 67, no. 2 (2007): 297–357. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25261882.