Landscape
Shitao (Zhu Ruoji) Chinese
Not on view
In the inscription on this fan, Shitao sets forth his theory of painting, "the single stroke," or "the painting of oneness (yihua)":
On a windy, rainy, spring day, I am happy I have no visitors; my hand is free, my mind relaxed and cleansed. The ancients called it yihua, the "single stroke": a thousand hills, ten thousand valleys, people, bamboo, trees,a single brushstroke and all is completed. On one level, yihua constitutes a very practical concept: a complete design begins and finishes with the single brushstroke. On a metaphysical level, it suggests that "myriad strokes are reunited in oneness" through the mind and hand of the artist and through the artist's spiritual communion with nature.
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