Rural Life Is Worth More than the Three High Offices

What you see

The landscape runs across all eight panels, their joins visible as faint vertical lines. At upper left, columns of calligraphy fill the sky of the first panels. Below spread hills, a large rock and groves of trees, with a few small houses near the bottom. On the right, the view gathers into a broad compound of tiled roofs, walls, courtyards and stairways, closed off by tall cliffs.

The silk has darkened to a brown tone, and the ink, with touches of muted color, melts into it. Trees and roofs are drawn in fine, careful strokes. In this small image the people are hard to make out. Look for the pale stone pillars rising along the right edge.