In 1374, Huang Gongwang, the best of the four painters in Yuan Dynasty, with the alternative name of “Silly Taoist Priest”, found seclusion on the bank of Fuchun Lake, Hangzhou in his old age. At the grand old age of eighty he perceived that life was wide and long, so he spent ten years creating the most excellent representative work of his life called “Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains”, his posterity praised it as the “Orchid Pavilion Preface in Paintings”, the historical work influenced the mainstream of water and ink paintings of Ming and Qing Dynasties for over six hundred years. The painting was divided into two scrolls due to a big fire at the beginning of Qing Dynasty, now the first scroll which is 51cm long is stored in Zhejiang Provincial Museum, while the second scroll 640cm long is stored in the Imperial Palace Museum in Taipei.

The long scroll that is nearly 700cm long depicts the wide expanse of mist-covered waters in the mountain resort on both banks of Fuhun River. Reading Huang Gonwang’s “Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains”, Dong Qichang, a great painter in Ming Dynasty used the words “comfortable with the spleen and heart” to describe his feelings. The beauty and elegance of Southern China is full of life, the hills and rivers are hidden in the painting, the past is congealed at the present, and there is harmony between man and nature in the painting, showing Huang Gongwang’s cultivation of himself with painting in leisurely calmness in his old age.