Scholars in a Waterside Villa

Xie Shichen began his art by learning the styles of Shen Zhou (1427–1509), the leading Wu school literati painter. He later launched a professional career in landscape painting by combining the literati style with elements of the academic Zhe school associated with court painting. Xie was said to have been interested in depicting what he directly observed in his travels. Here, the artist used his knowledge and travel experience to depict a scholar’s ideal life of seclusion in mountains. To the left, a gentleman in a white robe has just begun his climb along a narrow path to the temple on the hill. To the right, in the pavilion by the water, men are involved in secular pleasures such as fishing, drinking, and playing a board game. Beyond the rustic villa loom towering colossal peaks. The artist’s two-line poem reads:

Screen-like mountain peaks and suspending waterfalls rise from the flat ground,
High towers and extended pavilions rest by the opening sky.