Spring has not quite arrived, and Guo Xi paints the moment it decides to. Melting streams cut the valley floor while the peaks above still hold the cold, and a mist gathers where the season is still arguing with itself.
Guo Xi served the Song court as both painter and theorist. His treatise, the ‘Lofty Message of Forests and Streams,’ taught that a mountain must be seen from below, from across, and from inside at once. This scroll is that theory made visible: the eye climbs the cliff, crosses the gorge, and stands under the pines without leaving the room.
The twisting ‘crab-claw’ branches and the rolling ‘cloud-head’ rocks here became mannerisms copied for centuries. The painting is dated 1072, late in Guo Xi’s life, when the Northern Song still believed order and nature could be the same thing.
Object details
| Name | Early Spring (早春图) |
|---|---|
| Artefact no. | — |
| Technique | Ink on silk, hanging scroll |
| Period | Northern Song dynasty, 1072 CE |
| Collection | National Palace Museum, Taipei |
| Source | 台北故宫博物院 |
Image © National Palace Museum, Taipei. See the original in the museum collection.