In the West, reclusion is largely regarded as an aberration, a condition or behavior typically associated with curious eccentrics. In contrast, the concept of reclusion was so highly regarded in traditional China that it was retroactively assigned to the cultural heroes associated with the very beginning of civilization: Taigong Wang, for example, the sage fisherman plying his line on the banks of the Wei river until summoned to serve King Wen of Zhou (r. 1099-1050 BCE), and the legendary Xu You and Chaofu, who famously chose not to answer a similar summons from Emperor Shun.

In contrast to genuine recluses, who disappeared in silence, the artful recluses represented in art works had much to say and wanted their voices heard. Some scholar artists parlayed their declared recluse-status into true marketability. For most, however, the discourse of reclusion was intended for a far more limited audience of individuals who understood and commiserated. The rhetoric of reclusion signaled a seeking of like minds, those who could appreciate the artist’s specific expression of idealized disengagement during a period of crisis.

Many such works were produced at particularly critical historical moments and that stand out for the strength and pathos of their individual voices. Mi Wanzhong’s Landscape of 1625, for example, portraying a single staff-bearer crossing a stream and heading towards a place of refuge, was painted at the height of the eunuch-led purges at the court. According to the research of Philip Hu, Mi was one of the high officials at the court under pressure from Wei Zhongxian. Half a year later Mi was cashiered on trumped-up charges and almost lost his life. His Landscape looms as an assertion of escape, literally – standing well over 3 meters tall, the painting takes an ostensibly quiet subject and turns it into a monumental statement of defiance.