Landscape at Pingshan Pavilion

After the family of Lan Ying (1585-1664), Zhanggu (active 1644-1669) and his son, Zhang Sheng, were arguably the most important family of professional painters working in Hangzhou during the seventeenth century. Zhang Sheng was a conservative artist who continued the Five Dynasties and Song tradition of monumental landscape painting. The present work was completed in 1670 early in Zhang's period of maturity as an artist. Painted in a pavilion on Mount Ping, above the city of Hangzhou, the mountains show the vertical rock massing angular forms and foreground trees associated with the earlier painter, Qing Hao (10th century) but with a loosened style of decorative brushwork that is in keeping with seventeenth century aristocratic taste.