The Poetic Mood of Su Shi
Li Keran Chinese
Not on view
According to the artist's inscription, this painting was done when Li Keran and his students were painting landscapes in Guilin. It shows the great statesman, poet, and artist Su Shi (1036–1101) in a moment of reverie. Su was exiled several times for expressing his political views, but he used these periods for self-cultivation and created some of his most moving poetry and calligraphy. Li captured Su beside a lotus-filled pond. The dark lotus appear almost threatening, as if they are about to engulf the figure, who nevertheless sits quietly, facing the blossoms. The artist's inscription, taken from a poem by Su Shi, reads:
Lotus leaves reach up to the sky,
endlessly green.
In the sun's reflection they turn a
brilliant red.
(Wen Fong, trans., Between Two Cultures: Late-Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century Chinese Paintings from the Robert H. Ellsworth Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art [New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001], p. 237)
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