River and Mountain Landscape

Xiang Shengmo was a grandson of Xiang Yuanbian (1525–90), a distinguished connoisseur and collector of painting and calligraphy. The artist drew upon a wide range of ancient sources for his small-scale landscapes, which are renowned for their meticulous draftsmanship and quiet mood. The lone figure depicted here likely represents a reclusive scholar-official who has withdrawn from society into the solitude of nature—an ideal to which Xiang and other artists aspired. The collapse of the Ming dynasty and the loss of his family’s wealth, however, forced Xiang to sell his paintings for a livelihood rather than continue to paint for his own pleasure.