Fishing on a Snowy River
| Support Type: | Silk |
| Paint Type: | Ink |
| Current Location: | National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan |
Fishing on a Snowy River is an impressive landscape painting created by the Northern Song master Xu Daoning. The work depicts a severe winter landscape of the northern Chinese mountains. They are drawn in a large scale; their jagged outlines are emphasized by-shaped strokes and dark inks suggesting the rough surface of the rock and the depth of the crevices. The image invites the viewer to feel the complete silence of a cold and lonely place of frost and stone. On the bottom part of the painting, one can see some lonely trees, also covered with snow and ice. They frame the narrow strip of the frozen and gray river on which small fishing boats can be seen. Their tiny crews are fighting the harsh winter climate, which makes the overall impression of the painting sad and solemn. Xu Daoming carefully painted the pale winter landscape with the use of white spaces and negative space to emphasize the necessary areas. To create the illusion of dense fogs and snowstorms, the artist left some white spots on the silk, thus completing the contrast with the black inks. This technique, combined with the skillful depiction of the rocks and trees, makes the painting exceptionally harmonious. It reminds an observer of the need to respect the power of nature, the coldness and loneliness of winter wilderness and the beauty of human activity in the middle of it.