The Smithsonian Institution’s Freer Gallery of Art presents an exhibition from August 2008 to February 2009 titled “Guest of the Hills: Travelers and Recluses in Chinese Landscape Paintings.” The exhibition, to quote the Gallery’s description,
presents depictions of recluses and recreational travelers in Chinese landscape painting over a seven-hundred-year period, from the mid-eleventh to the mid-eighteenth century. Chinese landscape painting particularly appealed to members of the scholar-official class, who were intrigued by images of the free-roaming mountain sage or retired gentlemen living amid nature’s beauty. Other works depict actual excursions or journeys, or they were created as a gift for someone about to embark on a trip.