Landscape

In this panoramic view of an idealized landscape, Chen Guan follows a stream from its source in a distant mountain peak at the top of the painting to a broad plain enlivened by a wide river or narrow lake in the foreground. A rustic scholar’s hut on earthen banks to the right and a clump of elongated trees at the lower left enclose the bottom of the composition. The basic format is based on a well-known Yuan dynasty (1279–1368) antecedent: the famous tri-partite compositional scheme—"one river, two banks"—of the master amateur-scholar painter Ni Zan (1301–1374). In Chen’s painting, however, the lower stand of trees introduces an additional zone, adding a sense of elongation to this otherwise traditional scene.

Unlike Ni Zan’s distilled compositions, Chen’s painting is full of minute details in the trees, rocks, and other landscape elements. Though many of these forms are inspired by Yuan models, Chen belabors each shape and object—for example, in the serpentine shape of the mountains. Such learned mannerisms suggest professional training, and it is likely that Chen painted many of his works for sale rather than painting for recreation or as gifts to friends, in the tradition of Chen’s Yuan forebears.