Fishing in Reclusion on Lake Dongting

This is a landmark work of ink landscape with fisherman-recluse theme by Wu Zhen, one of the Four Great Masters of the Yuan Dynasty. Painted in the ninth lunar month of 1341 (the first year of the Zhizheng reign), the artist inscribed a famous Ballad of the Fisherman on the painting: “On Dongting Lake evening wind arises; wind sweeps the lake’s heart, a single boat lies athwart. Orchid oars steady, grass blossoms fresh; I fish only for weever, not for fame.” It is a vertical hanging scroll of ink on paper, measuring 146.4 cm in height and 58.6 cm in width, and is now in the collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei. The picture depicts the lakes and mountains of East Dongting in Jiaxing, Jiangnan, with tall pines on the near shore, a flat and vast water surface, a small boat adrift in the middle, and rolling hills in the distance, creating a quiet, remote and self-sufficient hermitic artistic realm typical of the Yuan literati.

In brush and ink techniques, Wu Zhen adheres to his characteristic moist and vigorous ink application and the dense texture strokes inherited from Dong Yuan and Ju Ran, while integrating his personal free and easy brushwork. The pines on the shore are outlined with round and strong lines, and the ink is rich and layered; the water surface is rendered with light and smooth washes, using blank space to imply the boundlessness of the lake. The fisherman in the boat is not detailed, but only sketched with a few concise lines—focusing on the mood rather than the form. The whole picture abandons complicated colors, and uses the contrast between thick and light ink and the blank space of the paper to highlight the tranquility of the lakeside after autumn, which perfectly embodies his artistic pursuit of expressing the spirit through ink and simplicity.

Art-historically, Fishing in Reclusion on Lake Dongting has extremely high value. As a representative work of Wu Zhen’s late fishing-recluse series, it integrates his lifelong Taoist thought of returning to nature and his noble sentiment of not coveting fame and fortune. In the context of the turbulent late Yuan Dynasty, Wu Zhen expressed the literati’s desire to stay away from the world through the image of the fisherman, which had a profound impact on the landscape paintings with hermit themes in the Ming and Qing dynasties. The integration of painting, poetry and calligraphy in this work also sets a classic example of literati painting’s trinity.