Landscape (after Wang Fu)

Like many Qing dynasty (1644–1912) artists, Zhai Dakun often borrowed styles from earlier Chinese masters of the Southern School canon of literatus painting. In so doing, Zhai celebrates at once a traditional imagery of contented harmony with nature and a nostalgic fondness for this enduring ideal in Chinese amateur-scholar painting practice.

In this scroll, Zhai Dakun creatively interprets the style or "brush concept" (called in Chinese, biyi) of Wang Fu (1362–1416), a scholar-official of the Ming court who was famous for his paintings of mountain-filled landscapes and bamboo. Zhai Dakun emulates Wang Fu’s distinctive brushwork in the dotting technique and long, gently curved "hemp-fiber" stroke he employs, as well as in the densely textured and energetically posed trees.

The Wang Fu "personal stamp" is particularly noticeable in the foreground—in the fluidly fluctuating contour lines of the large boulder protruding from the water, and in the expressively haphazard display of criss-crossing texture strokes that define the landmass near the trees.