In everyone's memory flows a meandering river. Carrying the heavenly water past numerous mountains, the stream merges into ancient legends. Absorbing the gentle drizzles from dawn to dusk, it brings life to the terraced farmland.

As one of the two great waterways that nurtured early Chinese civilization, the Yangtze River has inspired numerous works of art over the millennia. Some four decades ago, as China was opening a new chapter in its modern history, the mighty stream was captured in a 14-meter-long scroll by Chinese painter Guan Shanyue.

The scroll painting is titled "The River Gorges Landscape." Since its creation when China launched its economic reform, it has amazed viewers with its portrayal of the Yangtze River's course of 6,300 kilometers. In the scroll, Guan has made the Yangtze River a tangible yet touching presence. The vibrant life force of the stream has symbolized the vigor of the new era he was witnessing.

Throughout time, the Yangtze River has had many artistic manifestations. Its sweeping grandeur has been depicted in ink and colors. The river, however, was a source of pain and agony decades before Guan's painting.

In 1941, Guan visited Chongqing – a city on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River – for the first time to mount an exhibition supporting the war effort. During the show, Japanese warplanes devastated the city with a mass bombing. This crushing humiliation of the Chinese nation had resonated for years in Guan's memory. It also shaped his approach and methodology in artistic creation.

After leaving Chongqing, the artist began his journey of artistic exploration. He copied the Buddhist murals in the holy sites of Dunhuang, and painted the portraits of northern herders with their flocks and southern fishermen along the coasts. His footsteps and paint-brushes never slackened. As he recorded the beauty of his motherland, Guan also sought a better China. The bombed city on the Yangtze River, however, never faded from his memory. The painter hoped that one day he would replace the traumatic view with the fresh new image of the stream.

In 1953, the 41-year-old painter found himself again by the side of the Yangtze River. For the next five years, he worked and lived in the river city of Wuhan. With the Yangtze River echoing the prosperity on the city's banks, Guan Shanyue came to view the scenery in a new light. In his paintings of the period, he depicted the daily life of ordinary people by the river, a radical departure from the idealized concept of ancient scholar-painters. These paintings foreshadowed his later works.

In 1978, the Yangtze River was expecting an era of new hope. The year saw the final identification of the source of the Yangtze River. And a series of water transport projects were launched along the waterway. For Guan, this was also a period of brisk artistic activity. He was invited to do sketches and find inspirations along the river.

With his epic-worthy strokes, Guan rendered on paper the full grandeur of the Yangtze River. In the river valley between the precipices are the busy boats and porters. Up on the cliffs, villagers are looking forward to a more prosperous life. The terraced farmland nurtured by spring showers promises the hope of life.

As the scroll unfolds, a series of shifting compositions come into view, each with its own distinctive perfection. The judicious blend of imagination and realism is enlivened and invigorated by the artist's masterly touch.

"The painting is a perfect representation and portrayal of the splendor of the motherland and its rivers and mountains. It's fair to say that the Yangtze River as conceived by Mr. Guan Shanyue is a waterway unique to the hopeful and promising era," said Yu Yang, an art critic from Central Academy of Fine Arts.

From the Three Gorges Dam in central China's Hubei Province, the Yangtze River travels nearly 2,000 kilometers before reaching the sea. In the mind of Guan Shanyue, however, the vast distance was compressed to transcend both space and time. With his brush, he has poured all his past and present being into the image.