Monk Knocking on the Door in the Mountains

CHINA; Qing dynasty

This is the last of the twelve images in the People and Landscape Album by Jin Nong, one of the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou. His other famed artwork is Relics are Not Found in Stupas.
In the painting, a monk in gray clothing is shown raising his left arm and knocking on a door. Two trees are painted on the left. The monk and the door are depicted with concise, faint lines. Dabs of various shades of ink applied in a spontaneous manner are used to portray the leaves of the trees. The images are paired with a poem on the far left: “The door does not answer when the shade knocks. Is he an ordinary mendicant monk? He comes again today with empty hands, looking at the trees in the mountains.”