Shen Zhou Fangzi’s Long Fuchun Mountain Residence Picture Scroll

The greatest landscape of the Yuan dynasty was almost lost, then cut in half. Shen Zhou copied it before either thing happened.

The original was Huang Gongwang’s Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains (1350), the peak of literati landscape. Shen Zhou, a founder of the Ming Wu School, made this copy as study and homage. Decades later the original was burned and saved mid-flame, surviving as two separate sections; Shen Zhou’s faithful copy now stands as a witness to the whole.

Copying was how painters learned to see. Shen Zhou did not fake the master; he kept him. Where the original is fragmented, this scroll still shows the river’s full run from shore to distant peak.

Image © The Palace Museum. View the original in the Palace Museum Digital Collection.