Landscape with Elegant Colors at the Approach of Fall

In this scroll, Huang Junbi portrays a man boating on a lake in an unusual way—with his head turned back as if looking to the past. Huang might have imagined himself as the sole human inhabitant in the scene, perhaps suggesting his anguish at being homesick and lonely. Huang, a native of Nanhai in southeastern China, completed this painting in Taiwan in 1964, where he had relocated in 1949. The political situation prevented him from returning to mainland China for fifteen years. The artist inscribed this poem on this painting:

Rivers and mountains with elegant colors as the new
autumn approaches,
Red trees along clear water are hidden between pathways.
Sought-after lines are seen from the narrow boat,
solely drifting,
Cliff clusters casually overlap with white clouds.