However great the distance imposed by mountains and rivers, it can never confine the spirit's longing for home. Within the modest scale of brush and paper, the artist embraces boundless expanses of time and space. What reality cannot restore, imagination and painting gently reclaim, allowing the dream of homecoming to find expression upon the canvas.

“Though illness makes one keenly aware of the early chill of wind and dew,

 In dreams of home, one never notices the distance of mountains and rivers.”

—Wang Anshi, Song Dynasty poet

From Living Land: The Oil Paintings of Liu Jiutong