FAN KUAN / 范寬 (950- 1032)
Huangshan / 黄山 (1,864m - 6,115ft)
China
In Traveler Among Mountains and Streams, National Palace Museum, Taipe
About this painting
This 206.3 cm (about 6.75 feet) landscape known as the Travelers among Mountains and Streams, painted by Fan Kuan is considered one of the finest monumental landscape paintings by a Chinese artist. It also became a model for later Chinese painters. Fan Kuan based the painting on the Daoist principle of becoming one with nature. When looking at the painting, the viewer realizes how small he or she is compared to the big picture of nature.
The mountain
Huangshan / 黄山, sometimes called Yellow Mountains, is a mountain range in southern Anhui province in eastern China. Vegetation on the range is thickest below 1,100 meters -3,600 ft), with trees growing up to the treeline at 1,800 meters -5,900 ft). The Huangshan mountain range has many peaks, some more than 1,000 meters (3,250 feet) high. The three tallest and best-known peaks are Lotus Peak (Lian Hua Feng, 1,864 m), Bright Summit Peak (Guang Ming Ding, 1,840 m), and Celestial Peak (Tian Du Feng, literally Capital of Heaven Peak, 1,829 m).
The area is well known for its scenery, sunsets, peculiarly-shaped granite peaks, Huangshan pine trees, hot springs, winter snow, and views of the clouds from above. Much of Huangshan's reputation derives from its significance in Chinese arts and literature. In addition to inspiring poets such as Li Bai, Huangshan and the scenery therein has been the frequent subject of poetry and artwork, especially Chinese ink painting and, more recently, photography. Overall, from the Tang Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty, more than 20,000 poems were written about Huangshan, and a school of painting named after it. The mountains also have appeared in modern works. James Cameron, director of the 2009 film Avatar, cited Huangshan as one of his influences in designing the fictional world of that film. The area also has been a location for scientific research because of its diversity of flora and wildlife. In the early part of the twentieth century, the geology and vegetation of Huangshan were the subjects of multiple studies by both Chinese and foreign scientists. The mountain is still a subject of research. For example, in the late twentieth century a team of researchers used the area for a field study of Tibetan macaques, a local species of monkey.
Huangshan is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and one of China's major tourist destinations. The World Heritage Site covers a core area of 154 square kilometres and a buffer zone of 142 square kilometres. In 2002, Huangshan was named the "sister mountain" of Jungfrau in the Swiss Alps.
The artist
Fan Kuan (范寬, ca.950–1032) was a Chinese landscape painter during the Song Dynasty (960–1279). A native of Huayuan (華原, modern Yaoxian 耀縣) in Shaanxi (陜西) Province, Fan Kuan often traveled the area between the capital and Luoyang (洛陽). Although he was known for his magnanimous character, straightforward personality, and fondness of drink and Daoism, Fan Kuan is famous now for his landscape painting.
In his early study of painting, he followed the style of the Shandong (山東) artist Li Cheng (李成, 919–967). Later, however, Fan Kuan came to realize that if he really wanted to portray the land, he had to take Nature as his teacher rather than other artists or their works. After all, a personal landscape exists in nature and in the mind. Fan Kuan thereupon went to the Cuihua Mountain (翠華山) and secluded himself among the forests and mountains, devoting himself to observing the effects of atmospheric, weather, and seasonal changes on the scenery. Contemporaries thereupon praised him for being able to commune with the mountains.
Little else is known of his life, except the admiration and love he had for viewing the mountains of northern China. Fan Kuan was listed as the 59th of the 100 most important people of the last millennium by LIFE magazine.