Dancing and Singing (Peasants Returning from Work) 

Ma Yuan created this evocative landscape in ink and light colors on silk, during the Southern Song Dynasty. While the painting is titled ‘Dancing and Singing (Peasants Returning from Work)’, the human figures are so diminutive, they become part of the landscape. This was a time when the Southern Song court was in exile, having lost the northern part of the empire. Ma Yuan was a court painter, a position that afforded him a certain status, and this landscape is not just about a physical place, it is also a cultural and political statement. The misty washes evoke a feeling of longing and perhaps loss, but the towering mountains also speak to the enduring beauty and strength of the land. The inscription at the top, likely added later by an admirer, speaks of peasants singing and dancing. It suggests a harmonious relationship between the people and the land, a vision of social stability and cultural pride in a time of upheaval. This contrast between the intimate, personal scale of the figures and the vastness of the landscape creates a deeply affecting tension.