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Tall, slender peaks rising between bands of cloud, with a terraced palace at lower right and pines in front

Towers and Pavilions in the Mountains of the Immortals

Qiu Ying, 1550

What you see

Column-like mountains rise one behind another to the top edge, divided by bands of white cloud. Halfway up on the left, a multistory tower peeks out. Lower down the view opens: a pavilion with a pointed roof among trees, a large palace of terraces and stairways on the right and, in the foreground, a stand of pines on a bank.

Ochres and yellows dominate, with touches of blue-green on the summits and dots of dark ink suggesting moss and shrubs. The clouds are mostly bare paper. Look for the small waterfalls slipping between the rocks and the red seals along both margins.

About Qiu Ying

Qiu Ying was born around 1494 into a peasant family in Taicang and began in Suzhou as an artisan decorating lacquerware before becoming a professional painter. His meticulous, elegant brushwork and his gift for copying Song and Yuan paintings won him the favour of wealthy collectors such as Xiang Yuanbian. He is counted today among the Four Masters of the Ming dynasty, and his daughter Qiu Zhu also became a painter.

All 12 works by Qiu Ying

More by Qiu Ying

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