Hŏ Ryŏn was one of the foremost Southern School painters of the late Chosŏn period. His courtesy name was Mahil (摩詰), his sobriquet Soch'i (小痴) or Noch'i (老痴), and his original given name Yu (維). At the age of thirty-two, he was introduced through the Buddhist monk Ch'oŭi Sŏnsa (艸衣禪師, 1786–1866) to Kim Chŏng-hŭi (金正喜), under whose guidance he absorbed the brushwork principles and animating spirit of Southern School painting — an encounter that proved decisive in the formation of his distinctive artistic vision. That Kim Chŏng-hŭi declared him without peer east of the Yalu River attests to the degree to which Hŏ Ryŏn succeeded in giving expression to the unworldly, untrammelled spirit (ilgi, 逸氣) of the true literati painter through a brushwork idiom unmistakably his own. His pictorial manner laid the foundation for the modern Honam painting circle, passing in succession to his son Hŏ Hyŏng (許瀅), his grandson Hŏ Kŏn (許楗), and the collateral master Hŏ Paengnyŏn (許百鍊). Before his encounter with Kim Chŏng-hŭi, Hŏ Ryŏn had trained extensively with the Kongjae Sŏch'ŏp, the Gushi Huapu (顧氏畫譜), and the Jieziyuan Huapu (芥子園畫譜) as his models; and the present work follows directly the composition and brushwork of a landscape by Wen Jia (文嘉) as reproduced in the Gushi Huapu.

A comparison of the painting with its source reveals a near-perfect correspondence in the placement and form of each pictorial element: the earthen embankment in the foreground, the three trees of varying heights, the fisherman trailing a line from a small boat, the broad expanse of open water, the long-running embankment and low hills beyond, and the drifting mist and clouds among them. That the work is an act of homage (pang, 倣) to Wen Jia's landscape is also declared in the artist's own inscription: "Wen Jia excelled at painting. He took the spirit of Ni Yunlin as his model, yet in simplicity and elegance he falls short of Ni Yunlin himself. (文文水畵善 住倪雲林氣韻 簡雅自不可及)" In observing that Wen Jia followed Ni Zan yet could not surpass him, the inscription amounts to a high tribute to Ni Zan's supreme achievement. Indeed, Hŏ Ryŏn himself drew repeatedly and with evident preference on this Ni Zan–derived compositional mode, introducing modest variations of his own. In his later years he attained a fully independent style through the deployment of elegant and parched brushwork (supp'il and kalp'il), but no trace of that late manner yet appears in this painting. The work bears a vermilion square seal reading Soch'i (小痴).