Village at the foot of the mountains 1699

Shitao painted 'Village at the foot of the mountains' in ink on paper during the Qing Dynasty, roughly the mid-seventeenth century. In traditional Chinese landscape painting, the relationship between the human and natural worlds is central. Shitao's painting is no exception, capturing a village nestled harmoniously amongst towering mountains. The artist was a Chan Buddhist monk, and that spiritual connection to nature is clear in his rendering of the scene. But there's also a political dimension. Shitao was a member of the Ming Dynasty royal family, which was overthrown by the Qing. Many artists at the time used landscape painting to express feelings of displacement and longing for the past, and this painting may be one such example. As historians, we can look to written records, poetry, and other artworks from the period to understand more about the complex social and political context in which it was made. Artworks are never created in a vacuum, but are always a reflection of the world around them.