Fishermen's Evening Song, Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127), ca. 1049. Xu Daoning. Handscroll, ink and slight color on silk. Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust.
This horizontal hand-scroll depicts a continuous mountain panorama, with range after range of bleak and shattered peaks soaring above marshy valleys where the wintry fog hangs low. The most impressive technical feature is that the bounding outlines have been abandoned in favor of sweeping washes of wet ink. The artist, Xu Daoning, was active in the early 11th century and was known to his contemporaries as a master of winter "moods." Although there is no signature of the artist, judging from its unique style, the painting is recognized as a creation by Xu Daoning. The choice of a handscroll format for landscape was rather a relatively experimental form. It is a format designed to absorb the viewers from the right to left as the scroll is unrolled.
