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Which Early Spring are we looking at?
The museum’s record lists Guo Xi as the artist, 1072 as the date and 158.3 by 108.1 cm under its main painting dimensions. It describes a signed and dated work. [1] Susan Bush also identifies the painting as a large hanging scroll signed and dated by Guo Xi. [3]
Follow the changing distances
The National Palace Museum describes a combination of tall, deep and flat distances. Its account places an expansive horizontal view to the left and depth on either side of the central mountain. [2]
Try three separate passes through the whole image. First follow the central rise from the foreground towards the summit. Then look beside that rise for places where a lighter area separates one landform from another. Finally move towards the open left side. Notice how changing your route changes the kind of space you attend to.
Use the museum’s account as a starting point for your own looking. Follow one route, return to the foreground, then try another.
What does the mist do?
In the central detail, darker contours end beside a broad lighter area. A tree branch remains visible against that opening. Return to the complete reproduction and follow the interruption above and below the crop.
Bush discusses mist or empty silk obscuring middle distances in Guo Xi’s landscape theory. Such interruptions can make a mountain seem higher or a river longer. She offers mountains seen from different sides as a possible explanation for the curved cliffs in Early Spring. [3] Keep that possibility in mind while comparing the curved contours with the spaces between them.
A detail view helps locate the change in tone. The whole image lets you see how the opening separates several forms while keeping them within the same composition. Look for a contour you can follow, then the point where you have to supply its continuation in your mind.
Outlined area: this detail’s location on the whole scroll.
Find the buildings before the summit
The museum describes halls and pavilions in the mountains on the right. [2] In the right-hand detail, rooflines gather above a narrow descending watercourse. Some outlines are dark enough to follow easily; others merge with the trees.
Begin with one roof. Move down towards the water, then return to the whole scroll and find that group in relation to the central mountain. The small architecture gives you a different scale from the large rocks.
Outlined area: this detail’s location on the whole scroll.
Look for the change of season
The museum reads the emerging forms and clouds as a landscape awakening after winter. [2] Bush notes that most of the poems Guo Si recorded as his father’s favourites evoke seasonal topics, and names Early Spring among such paintings. She also describes this painting’s energy and routes for travelling. [3] With those readings in mind, look for a form that emerges clearly, then one that recedes into a lighter area.
Bush also discusses Guo Xi’s wider aim of transporting viewers into landscape through painting. Her account draws on translated writings associated with the artist and his son Guo Si. [3] Use that wider theory as context for the viewing experience.
Compare another kind of journey
Peter C. Sturman contrasts the multiple vistas and pathways of Guo Xi’s Early Spring with the more particular encounter offered by Fan Kuan’s Travelers Among Mountains and Streams. He reads Guo Xi’s landscape as broader in scope, while Fan Kuan’s composition gives a first impression of a vista encountered in passing. [4]
Compare the two whole paintings below. In Fan Kuan’s work, begin at the lower right. Sturman identifies the small traders and pack-laden donkeys, and describes the waterfall above as drawing attention to them. Follow their road towards the left, then look back at the great central mountain. [4] In Early Spring, return to the foreground and try the three routes described earlier: upwards, into the recesses and towards the open left side. Which painting makes you feel closer to one encounter, and which offers more routes to explore?
The images are displayed at a common height, not in proportion to the paintings’ physical sizes. Open either whole image to look more closely. The National Palace Museum identifies Fan Kuan’s painting as object 故畫000826N000000000; keep that identifier with the comparison. [6]
Two ways through a landscape
Reproductions shown at a common display height, not relative physical size.
Guo Xi, Early Spring
Fan Kuan, Travelers Among Mountains and Streams
For another work by Guo Xi to explore online, open the Met’s Old Trees, Level Distance. The museum records it as a handscroll, dated about 1080, with accession number 1981.276. [5] Compare that unfolding horizontal encounter with the upright movement through Early Spring.
Common questions
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Where is Early Spring?
Early Spring belongs to the National Palace Museum in Taipei, object identifier 故畫000053N000000000. [1] Check the museum’s current exhibitions before planning a visit.
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What was it painted on?
The National Palace Museum identifies silk as the support. [1]
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What are the three distances?
The museum uses tall, deep and flat distances to describe the combined spatial approaches in this composition. [2] Try following the central height, the recesses beside it and the open view towards the left.