Poem by Li Bai in Semicursive Script

Fu Shan preferred tall, narrow scrolls both for painting and for calligraphy. The piece of silk Fu chose for this hanging scroll was too long to fit on the top of his painting table; it was necessary for him to begin at the top of the cloth and then move the silk away from him as he continued toward the bottom, an action he had to repeat for each line of characters. There is, however, no noticeable break in the flow of the characters. The brush flies along the silk, turning, twisting, and on occasion grinding into the surface. The large characters are written with a great deal of power. The overall effect is raw and expressive, all the more surprising considering the qualities of the silk.
Fu Shan's artistic expertise, along with his anti-Manchu political orientation, won him popularity in Chinese intellectual circles both during and after his time. Members of the Yeh family were among the many who revered him.

This scroll contains the eight-line poem "Saixia qu," in which the Tang dynasty poet Li Po describes the hard life of soldiers defending China's barren frontiers.