Dwelling in the Floating Jade Mountains

Dwelling in the Floating Jade Mountains is a handscroll painting by the Chinese artist Qian Xuan, created during the Yuan dynasty (1271 - 1368). The painting depicts a mountain scenery from Wuxing (currently Huzhou city in Zhejiang province). In Qian Xuan’s painting, the rocks are rendered with textured brushstrokes to create a sense of light and shadow, as well as imitate the roughness of the surface. The trees, on the other hand, are created with blue and green stippling dots over a light ink wash, which creates a lush and verdant effect for the leaves. Qian is one of the Yuan Dynasty’s most famous artists, being one of the first scholar-painters to combine painting, poetry, and calligraphy within a single work. In Dwelling in the Floating Jade Mountains, Qian’s poem can be found on the top right, describing the serene life of living in nature in seclusion. Like other early Yuan dynasty period artists, Qian Xuan draws upon archaistic style, elements, and motifs from the earlier Tang dynasty (618 - 907). An example of such is the blue-and-green painting style used in Qian’s Dwelling in the Floating Jade Mountains painting. Qian Xuan is believed to have revitalised the blue-and-green art style during the Yuan dynasty, a style that evolved from the Tang dynasty’s heavy blue-and-green to the Yuan dynasty’s light blue-and-green, with Qian’s painting serving as an example for the latter.