1269 -1354 · Yuan Dynasty, Jiangnan and literate painting

Mountains, rivers and scholarly retreats become landscapes for Huang Gongwang constructed by the breathing of ink, the rhythm of wrinkles and observation slowly transformed into memory.

Huang Gongwang was born in 1269 in Jiangnan and went through the profound political transformations of the Yuan dynasty. A scholar, poet and musician, he first exercised subordinate administrative functions before a case linked to his superior took him to prison. He then turned to Quanzhen Taoism and led a life of travel, study and retirement in the regions of Suzhou, Hangzhou and the Fuchun Mountains. Tradition then placed him, with Wu Zhen, Ni Zan and Wang Meng, among the Four Masters of the Yuan dynasty. Tradition places him, along with Wu Zhen, Ni Zan and Wang Meng, among the Four Masters of the Yuan dynasty. Tradition places him, along with Wu Zhen, Ni Zan and Wang Meng, among the Four Masters of the Yuan dynasty. Tradition places him, along with Wu Zhen, Ni Zan and Wang Meng, among the Four Masters of the Yuan dynasty. Tradition places him, with Wu Zhen, Ni Zan and Wang Meng, among the Four Masters of the Yuan dynasty. Tradition places him, with Wu Zhen, Ni Zan and Wang Meng, among the Four Masters of the Yuan dynasty. His painting refuses the immediate descriptive illusion: it reinterprets the hemp fiber wrinkles that circulate energy in the mountain. Living in the Fuchun Mountains, started in 1347 for his Taoist friend Zheng Wuyong and completed three or four years later, is his preserved masterpiece. The horizontal scroll is gradually discovered from right to left. Sandbanks, hills, forests, houses and vast bodies of water alternate in a rhythm that does not correspond to a single point of view. The ink changes from dense to light; the shapes move closer, open then move away, like a meditative walk. Damaged by fire in 1650, the scroll was separated: a first fragment is kept in the Zhejiang Provincial Museum and the long section known as Master Wuyong at the National Palace Museum. This material history reinforces the need to distinguish the original work, its fragments and ancient copies. Huang only painted intensely at an advanced age, but his language became a major reference for literate painting of the Ming and Qing dynasties. His landscape does not simply reproduce the Fuchun: it offers its interior image, reconstructed by memory, walking and brush discipline. The "Huang Gongwang" selection notably compares Residence in the Fuchun Mountains. His reading favors drawing.

In Huang Gongwang, the mountain reads like calligraphy extended over time: each wrinkle connects the traveler's step, the breath of ink and the memory of the landscape.