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How does Xia Gui use a sailing boat in his storm-on-the-river painting?

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Pure and Remote View of Streams and Mountains, detail of hand scroll in ink and paper by Xia Gui, early 13th century (Southern Song); in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan. — Xia Gui *Pure and Remote View of Streams and Mountains*, detail of hand scroll in ink and paper by Xia Gui, early 13th century (Southern Song); in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan.

In the fan-shaped album leaf held by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which depicts a sailing boat on a river during a storm, Xia Gui uses the boat as a secondary focal point.1

The composition is carefully balanced, with the sailing boat positioned on the left side of the scene to serve this function, complementing other elements such as the houses and windswept trees on the shore. This work is characteristic of the artist's style, where the composition is often diagonally divided and the void is utilized as effectively as the solid masses to convey a precise, atmospheric scene.1