A Choreographed Portrait of A Panorama of Mountains and Rivers
The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting is a lyrical dance drama adapted from Wang Ximeng’s “A Panorama of Mountains and Rivers”. Allegedly to be completed when the artist of Northern Song period was merely 18th-years-old, Wang Ximeng’s “A Panorama of Mountains and Rivers” is the archetypal work of the blue–green Shanshui style, in which it stands as the most representable and historically marked piece.
The lyrical dance drama adaptation starts from the perspective of a modern-day researcher at the Palace Museum. As the narrative unfolds through the seven chapters: Scroll Unfolding, Seal Tracing, Silk Reeling, Minerals Exploring, Brush Making, Ink Grinding, and Painting Alive, audience, along with the researcher, experience the creation process of Wang Ximeng’s masterpiece, as well as the epic landscape of Southern China that gave birth to “A Panorama of Mountains and Rivers”. The lyrical dance drama revives many of the crucial moments in creating the timeless masterpiece, and in retrospect, it situates the painting in the Northern Song aesthetics and philosophy.
While the vibrant azurite blue and malachite green dominate Wang Ximeng’s scroll, this production also translates the aesthetics into the stage design. With a layered, picturesque scene stretched throughout the stage, The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting remains faithful to the landscape topography, aesthetics, continuous narrative, and an apt shifting of perspectives as observed in “A Panorama of Mountains and Rivers”.
Artist:
Wang Ximeng
Date of Creation:
Northern Song Dynasty, 1113 AD
Medium:
Ink and color on silk
Dimensions:
H: 51.5 cm, W: 1191.5 cm
Current Collection:
Palace Museum, Beijing
A Panorama of Mountains and Rivers is the only surviving work by the Northern Song Dynasty painter Wang Ximeng. It epitomizes the green-blue Shanshui painting (Chinese landscape painting), a major genre of Shanshui painting apart from Ink Wash Shanshui. A Panorama of Mountains and Rivers is a depiction of Southern China landscape that expands over 1190cm in width. Interweaving with the six sections of mountains and waters are the intricate houses, trees, and human figures that emphasize the daily liveliness in the topography. As the viewers unfold the long scroll, a continuous narrative is exhibited from the panorama, as if from the perspective of a wandering traveler. Green-blue Shanshui is named after the use of green and blue minerals and plant dye in the process of painting, and in “A Panorama of Mountains and Rivers”, viewers will be able to observe the bold and rich coloration that blurs the outlines and forms. It is believed that Wang Ximeng finished this painting when he was 18 years old and working as a personal librarian to Emperor Huizong.
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Dance of Oriental
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