Description

The inscription in the upper right names four characters that can be read as High Mountains and Long Water, an old phrase for a character that endures like the landscape itself. Below it unfolds a mountain landscape rendered entirely in ink, at whose center a forested cone rises steeply, accompanied on the left by a massive, mist-shrouded rock face.

On a ledge in the middle ground stands a small estate beneath dark cedars, in front of which a narrow wooden bridge crosses the river that winds in broad meanders through the foreground. The ink work ranges from near-black, short bundles of strokes for the needle foliage to widely trailing washes with which the banks of mist are laid in.

The absence of any color is programmatic here: distance, volume, and atmosphere arise solely from the interplay of light and dark. Signature and red seal conclude the pictorial inscription. Executed as a screen print on silk, this hanging scroll is a classic choice for lovers of pure ink painting without decorative additions.