Recluse in Mountains

This handscroll opens and closes with fantastic landscape elements: threatening overhangs and mysterious caverns are shrouded in pockets of heavy mist and eerie lighting. In the middle sections are quieter panoramas of the water and riverbanks. It is tempting to read into the landscape a response to the turbulent situation following the fall of Beijing to the Manchu in 1644. While there are no overt images of war, Fan Qi depicted a landscape of seemingly unstable and even chaotic forms. A loyalist to the previous Ming regime, Fan Qi was active in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, and made a decent living as a professional painter before its fall to the Manchu army during the dynastic transition. He developed his styles on his understanding of those of the Northern Song (960–1127) artists and strove for elegance, with his paintings having a rather dry quality.