| Pear
Blossoms, ca. 1280
Qian Xuan (ca. 1235–before 1307)
Handscroll;
ink and color on paper; 12 1/4 x 37 1/2 in. (31.1 x 95.3 cm)
Ex coll.: Sir
Percival David
Purchase, The Dillon Fund Gift, 1977 (1977.79)
|
| Although
this painting of a branch of pear tree blossoms resembles the beautiful bird and
flower paintings of the preceding Song era, here the composition carries a more
complicated message. These flowers were painted to express the artist's sorrow
over the fall of the Song dynasty to the Mongol invaders.
This painting,
datable to about 1280, was completed after the Mongols had successfully destroyed
the Southern Song government and taken control of China
to form the Yuan dynasty in 1279. For the first time in Chinese history, all of
China was under foreign rule. The traditional governmental careers of many Chinese
scholar-officials ended. The Mongol-run Yuan government threw many Chinese officials
out of office, while other Chinese scholars, such as Qian Xuan, simply refused
to cooperate with the newly formed Yuan government and chose retirement out of
loyalty to the destroyed Song government.
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