This article examines the paintings of Du Chunhui, whose work explores the imaginative potential of Chinese mountain and water painting (shanshui hua) and its capacity to be at once figurative and abstract. The author argues that Du’s paintings, which alternate a few realistically rendered elements with large areas of blank space and colour, evoke the poetics of Northern Song painting while recalling the Impressionists’ optical fusion of colour and, at times, the lyrical abstraction of Kandinsky. Rather than depicting a phenomenal landscape, Du synthesizes what is perceived and felt in a place, appealing to tactile and auditory as well as visual perception; the large scale of works such as Light, Spring and Jia Guang heightens this immersive effect. The article traces his dialogue with early and Northern Song masters including Huang Quan, Dong Yuan, Li Cheng, Fan Kuan and Guo Xi, and compares his Travel Impressions series with Wang Ximeng’s A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains and Wang Shen’s Misty River and Layered Peaks. It concludes that Du’s work synthesizes different periods, with travel and the memory of traversed space as its main thread.