Mountain Vegetables

Zhang Daqian Chinese

Not on view

This painting features an assortment of humble vegetables randomly arrayed as if freshly harvested and laid out on a kitchen table. It conveys the simple pleasures of home cooking, for which Zhang Daqian was well known. The shapes and positioning of the vegetables reveal formal concerns that belie the apparent playfulness of the composition. It grows directly out of the tradition of depicting flowers and vegetables in freely applied ink washes and color without the use of outlines.

Zhang Daqian often painted different combinations of vegetables, but this painting stands out for its reliance on "splashed ink" washes that show no traces of the brush in the rendering of the vegetables' lush leaves.

Mountain Vegetables, Zhang Daqian (Chinese, 1899–1983), Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper, China

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