FANG CONGYI / 方從義 (ca. 1301 - after 1378)
Lunghu shan / 龙虎山 (150m - 290ft)
China
About this painting (from the MET)
According to Daoist geomantic beliefs, a powerful life energy pulsates through mountain ranges and watercourses in patterns known as longmo (dragon veins). In Cloudy Mountains, the painter's kinetic brushwork, wound up as if in a whirlwind, charges the mountains with an expressive liveliness that defies their physical structure. The great mountain range, weightless and dematerialized, resembles a dragon ascending into the clouds.
The mountain
Lunghu shan / 龙虎山 (150m - 290ft) meaning Dragon Tiger Mountain, is located in Jiangxi, China. It is famous for being one of the birthplaces of Taoism, with many Taoist temples built upon the mountainside. It is particularly important to the Zhengyi Dao as it the Shangqing Temple and the Mansion of the Taoist Master are located here. It is known as one of the Four Sacred Mountains of Taoism. Two of them are the temples of Immortal City and Zheng Yi , all founded by Zhang Daoling, the Han Dynasty founder of the religion. There are more Taoist temples in nearby Shangqing Town.
Mount Longhu also has cultural significance has a historical burial site of the Guyue people, who placed their dead in hanging coffins on the mountains cliff faces.
In August 2010 UNESCO inscribed Mount Longhu on the World Heritage List as part of the complex of six sites that make up the China Danxia.
Mount Longhu can be reached from the nearby city of Yingtan.
The painter
Fang Congyi /方從義 (1302-1393), courtesy name Wuyu (無隅), sobriquets Fanghu (方壺), Bumang Daoren (不芒道人), Jinmen Yuke (金門羽客) and Guigu Shanren (鬼谷山人), was a famed Chinese painter during the Yuan Dynasty. Fang was a native of Guixi, Jiangxi Province. In his youth he studied and became a Daoist priest, joining the Zhengyi Dao sect at his local temple. After the death of his principal instructor in the early 1340s, Fang traveled along the Yangtze River to the capital Khanbaliq, now Beijing. It was there that he began painting. He obtained a patron, and produced a number of works based on his travels. He traveled extensively in the north before settling down at the seat of the Orthodox Unity Daoist church, the Shangqing Temple on Mount Longhu (Dragon Tiger Mountain), Jiangxi province. Imbued with Daoist mysticism, he painted landscapes that "turned the shapeless into shapes and returned things that have shapes to the shapeless."
