SANSUI Closeup and Tonal contrast in Chinese Painting.

Here's a close-up  of one area of a famous Chinese #sansui #landscape.

People wirte about how chinese painting doesn't use tonal contrast or shadows to create depth and yet in works like this contrasting tones of ink near black and lighter grays do create an illusion of depth, of water flowing past and thru dark recesses and cliffs from a higher place downwards into a larger body of water and note how the plainer tones contrast also with the texture strokes in the foreground!

One should also bear in mind the silk this was painted on may have darkened since this is hundreds of years old but the darkening has strengthened the contrast.