Wangchuan Villa

The Wang-ch'uan Villa is famous as the estate of the T'ang poet and painter Wang Wei (699-759), who composed a series of poems describing scenic spots within the estate and illustrated them in a handscroll painting. His original composition was preserved in Kuo Chung-shu's copy, which in turn was engraved in stone and rubbings made from it were widely available. Because of Wang Wei's image as the archetypical scholar-artist and fountainhead of the so-called Southern school of painting, literati painters often imitated his style and compositions. The Wang-Ch'uan Villa was important from the thematic point of view as well, giving rise to a genre of paintings of garden estates.

This version of the Wang-Ch'uan Villa is signed at the end with the name of Kuo Chung-shu and in fact is extremely similar to extant rubbings of Kuo's copy. Individual sites around the estate are identified in oblong cartouches and follow exactly the same order as the rubbing. The surfaces of the rocks and mountains are only slightly articulated with dilute contour strokes, unlike many copies in which texturing strokes form a rich surface pattern. The relative plainness of the surface lends an archaic feeling to this scroll.