The attendant awaiting the arrival of a boat with a scholar gentleman and his pet crane aboard provides the only sense of the passage of time in this cold, still landscape in which the unpainted white paper is used to represent snow. Once the scholar and his crane have landed, they will walk along the narrow path at lower right to a small hut, where companionship and tea await. The combination of the pagoda in the background, which may be a famous monument at West Lake in Hangzhou, and the artist’s inscription suggests that this work references the reclusive poet Lin Bu (967–1028), who lived near West Lake and penned a famous piece in honor of his beloved crane.