6124998 Thatched Huts Among Ridges in Winter, 1649 (ink & colour on silk) by Lan Ying (1585-c.1664); 183x68 cm; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, MN, USA; (add.info.: The larger forms in this wintry landscape are strongly silhouetted, and surfaces are composed of light and dark contrasts. Lan Ying??? inscription indicates he did this painting in the manner of Wang Wei (699??59), a Tang dynasty master associated with the beginnings of the ink landscape tradition, whose poems and landscape paintings are imbued with the ethos of eremitism?he retreat from society into a life of seclusion. Such spirit is also reflected in Lan??? composition: the portrait of the solitary cottage standing on a mountain amid a grove of trees. In such settings, the atmospheric effects created around the retreat often draw the theme beyond that of peaceful, nonreligious solitude to evoke feelings of otherworldliness.); Photo: by Minneapolis Institute of Arts, MN, USA; Gift of Joan Wurtele.