Winter Travelers in the Mountains of Shu 《蜀棧旅行圖》

Object Details

• Artist

  Formerly attributed to Fan Kuan (傳)范寬 (ca. 960-ca. 1030)

• Label

  Below contorted peaks, the roofs and upper stories of three temples hover in the mist like the hulks of grounded ships. Scooped and hollowed by powerful forces, the mass of the mountains looms above them, resembling the kind of heavily eroded lake rock favored by wealthy Chinese as natural sculpture for their desks and gardens. In a vast reversal of scale, the singular twisted shape of such a rock has been enlarged, made monumental, to form the very mountain itself.

  Paintings of fantastic landscapes such as this belong to the realms of poetry and dream, where ordinary people go about their everyday lives surrounded by an utterly surreal terrain. Wearing hoods and bundled against the winter cold, travelers on horseback briefly appear around a bend of rock at the middle left of the picture. Where the road re-emerges at lower left, other riders and men shouldering parcels thread their way single file across a zigzag wooden bridge and over curious stalagmite-like rocks that thrust from the riverbed below. A plank road supported by trestles and pilings hugs the face of the cliff at middle right, leading upward to an alpine village and ultimately to a tiny gateway in the distant mountain pass. This painting may depict the road to the famous Sword Gate Pass in Shu (modern Sichuan).

• Provenance

  To 1917

  Li Wenqing (late 19th-early 20th century), Shanghai, to 1917 [1]

  From 1917 to 1919

  Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Li Wenqing, in New York, in 1917 [2]

  From 1920

  Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [3]

  Notes:

  [1] See Original Kakemono and Makimono List, L. 1173, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. See also, Voucher No. 18, December 1916.

  [2] See note 1.

  [3] The original deed of Charles Lang Freer's gift was signed in 1906. The collection was received in 1920 upon the completion of the Freer Gallery.

• Collection

  Freer Gallery of Art Collection

• Exhibition History

  Seasons: Chinese Landscapes (December 18, 2010 to June 12, 2011)

  In the Mountains (January 31 to August 2, 1998)

  Ching Dynasty Paintings (June 15, 1979 to November 6, 1979)

  Yuan Chiang School, Chinese Paintings (April 12, 1963 to October 15, 1963)

• Previous custodian or owner

  Li Wenqing 李文卿 (ca. 1869-1931) (C.L. Freer source)

  Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919)

• Origin

  China

• Credit Line

  Gift of Charles Lang Freer

• Type

  Painting

• Restrictions and Rights

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Keep Exploring

• Related Resources

  collections.si.edu

• Date

  1700s, 1650s

• Name

  Freer, Charles Lang, Li, Wenqing

• Place

  China

• Topic

  Mountains, Bridges, Charles Lang Freer collection, Landscapes, Art, Winter, Chinese Art, Qing dynasty (1644 - 1911)

• Culture

  Chinese

• Object Type

  Paintings