LOOK AT THE WHOLE SCROLL
A mountain measured by its travellers
This is the National Palace Museum’s original hanging scroll by Fan Kuan.[1][2] The museum dates it to circa 1000 CE.[2] The museum’s exhibition essay describes a donkey caravan below the peaks and blank mountain bases used to suggest enveloping mist, distance and separation.[3]
The mountain seems to fill the picture before the people become visible. Look near the lower right and find the small procession emerging from the trees. The National Palace Museum describes a donkey caravan beneath the peaks and the contrast between the tiny figures and the mountains.[3] Return to the mountain after finding the travellers. Does it now seem larger, or does the little road make the scene easier to enter?
Start with the whole scroll. Trace the mountain’s outer edges up towards the top. Then move down to the caravan. The people occupy very little of the image, but they give you a different way of reading its space. This page follows those small details before returning to the mountain.
LOOK CLOSELY
Follow the caravan
Detail: pack animals on the road below the wooded slope. The outlined box locates this view in the whole painting.
In his chapter on landscape painting, Peter C. Sturman identifies two traders accompanying four pack-laden donkeys. Sturman describes the viewer’s sensation of moving parallel to the painting, from right to left, prompted by the composition and the small figures on the road.[4] Try counting the pack animals you can distinguish along the road, then compare your count with the four in Sturman’s reading.
The crop makes the animals easier to inspect. It also removes much of the mountain. Switch back to the whole image before deciding what their journey means. A reader concentrating only on the caravan sees a small episode; the same group beneath the peak occupies a different place in the composition.
Keep the whole painting in view as you try the routes below. The pale waterfall runs down the right side of the main mountain. The caravan road lies low at the right; large foreground rocks occupy the bottom of the painting.
Sturman connects the caravan with the waterfall above it. In Sturman’s account, the falling water brings the eye towards the group, while the road and the band of mist encourage movement to the left.[4] Treat this as a route to try. Start at the waterfall and follow that direction. Then begin with the foreground rocks instead. Where does each route take your eye first?
Detail: the stream crossing at lower left and temple roofs at upper right. Sturman identifies a trestle bridge across the stream in this part of the painting.[4] The outlined box locates this view. Open larger view of the whole painting.
Sturman’s reading also identifies a third figure, a monk near the rocky crest above and left of the bridge, moving towards the temple on the right.[4] The earlier road close-up does not contain the entire bridge-to-temple route. Return to the whole image to follow the wider relationship.
SPACE
What the mist leaves out
The outlined box locates this detail in the whole painting. Open the whole view to follow the wider composition.
Between the nearer rocks and the distant mountain, a pale band interrupts the dense marks. The museum’s exhibition essay explains that the mountain bases are left blank to suggest enveloping mist and heighten the effect of distance and separation.[3] Blankness here has a specific pictorial job. It is not evidence that the photograph has lost a section of the painting.
Look at the mist detail. Follow the edge where dark trees meet the pale area. Notice where the larger rock faces reappear above the mist. The eye can connect those surfaces even where the intervening ground is not described. Notice how much distance you supply while looking.
Sturman reads the central mountain as a force that counters the caravan’s sideways movement: the massif looms upwards and forwards.[4] Sturman also identifies the foreground boulders as anchors for the composition.[4] Return to the whole scroll and test those relationships. Try following the road without looking up. Then begin at the summit and work down. Neither route needs to be the only correct way to look.
BRUSH AND INK
Marks that build the mountain
The museum’s exhibition essay describes angular ink outlines and short texturing strokes similar to raindrops.[3] In this view, compare the clustered short marks at upper left with the stronger irregular lines at the right. What changes when the small marks gather closely together?
The outlined box locates the rock-face view. Open larger view of the whole painting
Look at the short marks across the rock faces, then follow the longer outlines. Where do the marks make a surface seem rough, and where do they give it weight?
How real, how invented?
In a study of Fan Kuan’s painting, Takenami Haruka argues that the painting combines close observation with an idealised construction. Takenami’s own English abstract describes an image that goes beyond depicting an actual site to create a symbolic visual world. In that account, the artist emphasises the height and mass of the main peak and arranges motifs to guide the viewer’s gaze.[5]
Takenami also interprets the scene as a late-summer evening, drawing on the monk and caravan.[5]
CHECK THE OBJECT
Which Travelers are you looking at?
The title does not identify the object by itself. The National Palace Museum holds other works connected with Fan Kuan’s painting, and its exhibition essay discusses later copies and imitations.[3] Check the museum, dimensions and object record alongside any image you find.
Original: Travelers Among Mountains and Streams
Object 故畫000826N000000000. Museum size field 本幅: 206.3 × 103.3 cm. [1]
Not shown here
Travelers: probably a later imitation
Record 1275 · Object 故畫000038N000000000. Museum size field 本幅: 155.3 × 74.4 cm. [7]
The museum describes this as probably a Qing-dynasty imitation, originally ascribed to Fan Kuan. [7] Its exhibition essay tentatively links it to Wang Hui; this is not an established attribution. [3]
Only the original’s reproduction is shown on this page. Use the museum record to view this separate work.
Not shown here
A similarly named work: Travellers Among Mountains and Streams
Record 14563 · Object 故畫001261N000000006. Museum size field 本幅: 28.7 × 25.4 cm. [6]
Only the original’s reproduction is shown on this page. Use the museum record to view this separate work.
For the original shown here, use the museum’s record 1195: Fan Kuan, silk, museum size field 本幅 206.3 × 103.3 cm.[1] A separate record, 14563, is titled Travellers Among Mountains and Streams and lists a museum size field of 28.7 × 25.4 cm.[6] Check the object number as well as the title: this is 故畫001261N000000006.[6] It is a different work from the original.
The museum’s exhibition essay describes the composition of record 1275 (Travelers) as almost identical to the original, with the bridge over the stream placed slightly higher.[3] Record 1275’s title and listed artist came from the editors of a Qing catalogue; modern research suggests it may be an imitation by Wang Hui.[3] That attribution remains tentative. Similar composition does not make it the same physical scroll.
The essay also suggests that the original’s present title probably derives from Dong Qichang’s inscription on paper mounted above the painting.[3] The cropped photograph used here does not show that whole mount. An image ending at the painted area can omit information that belongs to the history of the scroll.
VISITING
Seeing the original
Collection: National Palace Museum, Taipei, as credited in the collection record. [1]
Past exhibition: Southern Branch S203, 11 November to 28 December 2025. [2] The Southern Branch is in Taibao City, Chiayi County, a different place from Taipei. [8]
Current display: not verified. Before planning a visit, confirm the exact work with the museum using object number 故畫000826N000000000. [1]
Check the Taipei Northern Branch’s current exhibitions or the Southern Branch’s current exhibitions, then confirm the scroll’s display with the venue. The Southern Branch also provides hours and tickets. The 2025 exhibition dates do not confirm current display.
Before leaving the image, return to the tiny travellers. Now look at the pale interval above them and then at the peak. Has the caravan become more important to your experience of the painting, even though it remains so small?
Common questions
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What does Fan Kuan’s Travelers Among Mountains and Streams show?
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Who is in the caravan, and how does it shape the composition?
Sturman identifies two traders accompanying four pack-laden donkeys.[4] The museum describes the contrast between these tiny figures and the monumental mountain.[1] Sturman describes the viewer’s sensation of moving parallel to the painting, from right to left, prompted by the composition and the figures on the road.[4] These readings concern the composition; they do not prove why Fan Kuan chose that scale.
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When was it painted, and where is the original?
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Is this the same work as museum records 1275 and 14563?
No. The original shown here is record 1195, object 故畫000826N000000000, with museum size field 本幅 206.3 × 103.3 cm.[1] Record 1275 is a separate scroll, described by the museum as probably a Qing-dynasty imitation, with museum size field 本幅 155.3 × 74.4 cm.[7] Record 14563 is another work with a similar title and museum size field 本幅 28.7 × 25.4 cm.[6] A similar title does not identify the same object.
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Is the original currently on display?
Current display has not been verified. The museum’s centennial entry lists a Southern Branch S203 exhibition from 11 November to 28 December 2025.[2] Those dates have passed. The collection record was checked on 6 October 2026 and the centennial entry on 7 October 2026. Consult the museum’s current exhibition information before planning a visit.