The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting, Volume 5

Pages 7–8

The rocky crags are many, twisting and coiling;
Those piercing the heavens are mostly steep and rugged.
The waterfall roars and sprays;
Strange stones stand tall and jagged.
Farming the fields, one burns the white clouds original: "燒白雲" (shāo bái yún). A poetic reference to slash-and-burn agriculture in high mountains where smoke mixes with the clouds and mist.;
Tapping lacquer, the sound echoes through the cinnabar ravines original: "丹壑" (dān hè). Red-colored valleys, often associated with mineral-rich earth or the vibrant colors of autumn..
Wandering, one follows the ridge where elks wander;
Returning, one faces the cranes nesting in the pines.

Wang Mojie Wang Wei (699–759), a famous Tang dynasty poet and painter often honored as the "ancestor" of literati painting. would be startled by the mastery of this carving and its fluid blending.
This grandeur and lush greenery—not even the masters Lü Likely referring to the Ming painter Lü Ji. or Li Li Cheng (919–967), a definitive Northern Song painter known for his "distance" and wintry trees. could achieve this.
Unless Xianxi Guo Xi (c. 1020–1090), the preeminent Northern Song landscape artist. His style is characterized by "crab-claw" branches and "devil’s face" rock textures. takes up the brush to capture it, such a scene simply cannot be rendered.

The Master's View

The text on this page serves as an "encomium"—a piece of high praise—for the accompanying circular woodblock print. By invoking names like Wang Wei and Guo Xi, the manual connects the student directly to the "Old Masters," suggesting that by following these patterns, one might capture the same "spirit resonance" that defined the golden age of Chinese landscape painting.

Cun (Texture Strokes): The specific lines used here to show the roughness of the "rocky crags." Different masters invented different "strokes" (like "hemp fiber" or "ax-cut") which this manual teaches.

Woodcut: This illustration is a masterpiece of the Jieziyuan carvers, who had to translate the fluid, watery ink-washes of a brush into the hard, precise lines of a wooden block.