HUANG GONGWANG (黃公望) (1269-1354)
Fuchun Mountains (400 / 500m - 1312,34 ft /1640,42ft)
China
Scroll of "Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains"
3 different views from the scroll + the complete scroll
Painted between 1347 and 1350
National Palace Museum, Taipei
Huang Gongwang (黃公望) (1269-1354), original name Lu Jian (陸堅), went by the style name Zijiu (子久) and sobriquets Dachi (大癡) and Yifeng Daoren (一峰道人).
Huang Gongwang is considered one of the Four Great Masters of the Yuan along with Wu Zhen (吳鎮) (1280-1354), Ni Zan (倪瓚) (1301-1374), and Wang Meng (王蒙) (1308-1385), and is revered as their spiritual leader.
A native of Changshu, he came from a poor family and was orphaned at an early age.
Huang Le (黃樂) of Yongjia was 90 years old at the time and without a male heir. Appreciating the talents of the young boy, he treated the child as his own. The Lu family thereupon consented to allow Huang to adopt him and carry on the Huang name. Huang exclaimed by saying "Old Man Huang has always longed for a son". This became the basis of Huang Gongwang's name, which translates literally as "Old Man Huang's Longing."
Huang Gongwang was exceptionally gifted as a youth, mastering the Chinese classics at an early age. He also studied Taoism and later became a follower of the Quanzhen Sect. Traveling throughout the Songjiang and Hangzhou regions, he made a living by fortune-telling. Like his interest in calligraphy and music, painting was an activity practiced on the side. His landscape paintings are based on the manners of Dong Yuan (董源) and Juran (巨然), 10th-century artists who depicted the soft rolling landscape of the south.
He worked on the painting “Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains” (above) on and off when the mood struck him from about 1347 to 1350, when the major portions of this handscroll were completed. “Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains” is one of the rare surviving Huang's masterpieces and maybe his greatest. It is now shown in the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
The mountains
Endowed with green mountains and clear waters, Fuchun is nowadays a modern city with a population of over one million. It is an important industrial city in Northeast China. Generally known as Coal City, Fuchun is now also reputed as the City of Rocks.
Fuchun City is cuddled by hills in the south, north and east. It is a part of Long gang Mount Range of Changbai Mountain Family and has an altitude of 400 to 500 meters (1312,34 ft to 1640,42ft).
The northern part of Fuchun is characterized by low and flat highlands while its western part features the plain of accumulations by Hunhe River. The plain is 100 to 300 meters high above the sea level. There are Hunhe River, Taizi River, Suzi River and Fu’erjiang River.
Fuchun City is the cradle of Qing dynasty. Hetuala City, the original location of the establishment of Qing Empire, is retained completely.
