Detail of the Lofty Scholar among Streams and Mountains Hanging Scroll in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, August 2023

Title: Lofty Scholar among Streams and Mountains, in the manner of Juran

Artist: Wang Jian (Chinese, 1609–1677/88)

Period: Qing dynasty (1644–1911)

Date: late 17th century

Culture: China

Medium: Hanging scroll; ink on paper

Dimensions: Image: 72 x 33 in. (182.9 x 83.8 cm)
Overall with mounting: 107 1/2 x 38 1/4 in. (273.1 x 97.2 cm)
Overall with knobs: 107 1/2 x 42 1/2 in. (273.1 x 108 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Gift of Douglas Dillon, 1991

Accession Number: 1991.117.1

The Orthodox school master Wang Jian seldom painted figures or architecture. In this painting, however, Wang, who claims in his inscription to have been inspired by a work of the same title by Juran (act. ca. 960–95), has depicted a scholar seated in a handsome two-story studio overlooking an expanse of river. The idea of a mountain retreat also recalls Wang Wei's (699–759) Wangchuan Villa.

The mountain forms, made with round "hemp-fiber" texture strokes and rich "alum-head" moss dots, are characteristic of the Juran brush idiom as interpreted by the Yuan master Wu Zhen (1280–1354). By executing the round arcs of these strokes in a rhythmical manner, Wang Jian invented the undulating compositional movements that his pupil Wang Hui (1632–1717) developed into the so-called dragon-vein principle.