Who painted the Song-dynasty handscroll Early Spring?

Guo Xi painted the Song-dynasty handscroll Early Spring.

Created in 1072, Early Spring is a major Northern Song landscape painting. Guo Xi arranged mist, trees, rocks, and mountains to suggest the seasonal awakening of nature. The work is a hanging scroll rather than a handscroll, despite the question’s description; the correct identification is the painting Early Spring by Guo Xi.

Guo Xi served at the imperial court and wrote about painting in The Lofty Message of Forests and Streams. His ideas emphasized the changing appearance of mountains according to season, weather, distance, and viewpoint.

Early Spring is now in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. It is frequently compared with Fan Kuan’s Travelers Among Mountains and Streams, but the two artists differ in atmosphere and structure.