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Shen Zhou (1427 -1509)
Landscape Panorama, 1477
Ink and watercolor on paper
Helen Thurston Ayer Fund
57.13

Before the invention of the multi-page book format, handscrolls—with or without pictures—were often used for recording texts, and they were read as Chinese is written, from right to left. This convention has continued to the present. Since handscrolls are meant to be perused one section after another as they are unrolled, the format is best suited for works with a story line or those that harbor some surprise or revelation.

Here, the viewer is taken on an imaginary journey along a river. The painting begins quietly with a stretch of low-lying land and a distant view of misty hills, but the terrain soon becomes more mountainous. Steep cliffs and massive outcroppings of rock push to the very bank of the river, then suddenly, about halfway through the scroll, part to reveal a spacious valley with hazy blue mountains in the distance. This unexpected opening out of the landscape, marked by a mysterious leafless tree and a tiny figure carrying a staff, has a revelatory quality that might well have been intended to express a Daoist enlightenment experience. Although Shen Zhou is rarely associated with spiritual parables of this sort, such an interpretation is clearly suggested by his use of several Daoist terms in his inscription at the end of the scroll. Most of Shen Zhou’s work is in the more detached style associated with the literati painting of his native Suzhou.