Winter Landscape with Boat

Tall trees on the riverbank tower above a cottage nestled below. A layer of snow covers its roof, the nearby rocks, and distant mountain peaks. A lone boatman, at right, rows his boat on the river. These elements make up a quiet yet dramatically rendered scene on a round fan.

During the Song dynasty (962-1279), fans were not only used to cool oneself but signified social status and noble taste. This fan, with its miniature landscape, would have communicated lofty, scholarly ideals on behalf of the user. Chinese landscape paintings, though typically monumental in scale, were regarded as the highest form of Chinese art and were laden with meaning, in this case the insignificance of humanity compared with the grandness of nature.