Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains

Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains (Chinese: 富春山居圖) is one of the few surviving works by the painter Huang Gongwang (1269–1354) and it is considered to be among his greatest works. Painted between 1348 and 1350, the Chinese landscape painting was burnt into two pieces in 1650. Today, one piece is kept in the Zhejiang Provincial Museum in Hangzhou, while the other piece is kept in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. The entire painting combined would measure 691.3 cm in length.

Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains is considered one of the greatest surviving masterpieces by the highly acclaimed Chinese painter Huang Gongwang (1269–1354). He began serious studies in painting only at the age of 50. In 1347, he moved to the Fuchun Mountains (southwest of Hangzhou, along the northern bank of the Fuchun River), where he spent the last years of his life. There he made a number of paintings on the natural landscape, among them Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains.

It was "carefully designed and developed in layers of wet washes and brush strokes, giving a convincing appearance of off hand but inspired organisation and of spontaneous ink-play in detail"—two techniques with which Huang Gongwang is associated, later influencing such artists as Wang Yuanqi, one of the 'Six Masters of the Early Qing'. He presented it to a Taoist priest as a gift in 1350. A century later, the painting was somehow acquired by the Ming Dynasty painter Shen Zhou (1427–1509). During the reign of the Chenghua Emperor (1465–1487), Shen Zhou sent the painting to an unnamed calligrapher to be inscribed (a curious point considering Shen Zhou was an excellent calligrapher himself). However, the son of this calligrapher seized the painting which, after a few changes of hands, reemerged on the market being sold at a high price. Unable to afford the price, there was nothing Shen Zhou could do except to make a copy of the painting himself. This imitation by Shen Zhou has become the most well-known and acclaimed copy among all others.

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