The Fragment of a Lost Era To look at the surviving work of Qu Ding is to confront a rare survivor of the Song dynasty. Most of his output has vanished into the void of history, leaving only a single, tangible connection to his hand: Summer Mountains. This work, currently held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, provides the only concrete evidence of his technical capability. It is a landscape that demands attention through its scale, offering a panoramic view of mountains and rivers that defines the spatial logic of his era. His survival in the historical record is tied to his proximity to po…