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Whiling Away the Summer at the Ink-Well Thatched Hut

Wu Li Chinese
1679
Not on view
In his inscription, Wu Li records that he painted this handscroll one clear morning after a rainfall, sitting alone in his studio thinking of an absent friend. There is a dreamlike quality about the painting: birds, trees, bamboo, mist, and even rocks dance joyously around the hermit-scholar, who sits quietly reading in his idyllic domain. Although he was an ardent admirer of Huang Gongwang (1269–1354), Wu transformed the Yuan painter's "hemp-fiber" texture strokes into a distinctly personal style: cool pale ink textures in intricate contrasting patterns, silhouetted and suspended in space, have been applied with both an athlete's vigor and a poet's gentle cadence.

In 1681, two years after he painted this work, Wu Li was baptized as a Christian, a most uncommon thing to do for a man of his background. Ordained in Macao as a priest in 1688, he was sent in 1689 to do missionary work in Shanghai, where he died in 1718.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • 清　吳歷　墨井草堂消夏圖　卷
  • Title: Whiling Away the Summer at the Ink-Well Thatched Hut
  • Artist: Wu Li (Chinese, 1632–1718)
  • Period: Qing dynasty (1644–1911)
  • Date: 1679
  • Culture: China
  • Medium: Handscroll; ink on paper
  • Dimensions: Image: 14 5/16 x 105 3/4 in. (36.4 x 268.6 cm)
    Overall with mounting: 14 11/16 x 393 1/16 in. (37.3 x 998.4 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Ex coll.: C. C. Wang Family, Purchase, Douglas Dillon Gift, 1977
  • Object Number: 1977.81
  • Curatorial Department: Asian Art

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7595. Whiling Away the Summer

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