The Kangxi Emperor's Southern Inspection Tour, Scroll Three: Ji'nan to Mount Tai

When it was painted

In 1689 the Kangxi Emperor, then in his mid-thirties, set out on his second tour of the south. He went to check the dikes and canals of the Yellow River and the Grand Canal, and to meet the scholars and townspeople of the rich southern provinces face to face. His route ran through Shandong to Mount Tai, the sacred peak where emperors had long offered sacrifices to Heaven and Earth.

When the journey was over, the court decided to record it in paint. The job went to Wang Hui, a landscape painter from Changshu in the south. Born in 1632, he was already well past fifty and famous. He moved to Beijing, led a team of painters, and produced twelve enormous handscrolls.

Here is a surprise. According to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Wang Hui never visited Mount Tai himself. He built these paths and temples from maps and woodblock prints. The Met credits the scroll to Wang Hui and his assistants, and reads its clear blue-and-green landscape as a way of showing the emperor's kindly rule.

The court honored him with a four-character phrase meaning landscapes clear and radiant. When the work was done, Wang Hui chose not to stay at court and went home to Changshu. The twelve scrolls were later scattered, and this third one entered the Met in 1979. In 2008 the museum borrowed that same phrase as the title of its Wang Hui exhibition.

Now look again at the courtyard at the very bottom. The painter never climbed this mountain, yet the two men sweeping that courtyard feel close enough to touch.