Water Pavilion by Twin Pines

This landscape was attributed to the Northern Song court painter Guo Xi (c. 1001-c. 1090) by the authors of early 20th-century colophons that accompany the painting. The depiction of figures gazing out from two water pavilions at the foot of a rocky outcrop—as well as a dramatic clusters of old pine-trees and billowing, restless forms of mountain-ridges that rise from valleys into the high distance—are all features associated with Guo Xi’s iconic landscapes. The relatively looser composition and hybrid brushwork, however, point to a Yuan re-interpretation of this Northern Song style. A seal on the painting that may be associated with a Yuan scholar named Wu Fang supports this fourteenth-century date.