Listening to the Waterfall

In this evocative early Zhe school painting, a scholar-recluse lying near the edge of a cliff listens to the powerful waterfall that roils and boils above his resting place and crashes into the crevasse below. He has set aside his qin (zither) and book to enjoy the natural environment around him. The style and theme of this painting derives from the work of Ma Yuan (active 1180–1225), a well-known Song dynasty artist whose style had tremendous influence on Zhe school painting throughout the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). The qin-playing recluse enjoying a waterfall is one of the most popular themes in Zhe school subjects. The painting underscores the early Ming revival of Song dynasty (960–1279) painting. Looking back on this golden age of Chinese culture was a way of negating the artistic accomplishments—which were many—of the Yuan dynasty (1280–1368), a period of Mongol control.