Mountain Landscape after Jīng Hào

A sinuous path leads us deep into a surreal, animated topography of twisting organic forms, a space far away from our familiar, routine world. This was the promise of landscape painting, a tool to refresh those with the capacity to harmonize with the painter’s understanding of a version of nature refined and idealized. In this work, Lǚ Huànchéng uses painting modes of the distant past to evoke an antique air. Blue and green mountains recall ancient landscape paintings and reference a mystic utopia of immortals and sages. Moreover, the overhanging shapes and rhythmic progression of the mountain peaks allude to the style of a painting master and art theorist of the 10th century, Jīng Hào 荆浩, as noted in the artist’s inscription.