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Anatomy of a Masterpiece: How to Read Chinese Paintings
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元 王蒙 素庵圖 軸
Wang Meng (ca. 1308–1385)
Simple Retreat, ca. 1370
Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper; 53 1/2 x 17 3/4 in. (136 x 45 cm)
Ex coll.: C. C. Wang Family
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Promised Gift of the Oscar L. Tang Family (L.1997.24.8)
See an alternate view of this artwork.
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Wang Meng depicted scholars in their retreats, creating imaginary portraits that capture not the physical likeness of a person or place but rather an interior world of shared associations and ideals. He presented the master of Simple Retreat as a gentleman recluse. Seated at the front gate of a rustic hermitage, he is shown holding a magic fungus, as a servant and two deer approach from the woods. In the courtyard, another servant offers a sprig of herbs to a crane. The auspicious Daoist imagery of fungus, crane, and deer as well as the archaic simplicity of the figures and dwelling evokes a dreamlike vision of paradise. In creating this visionary world, Wang transformed the monumental landscape imagery of the tenth-century master Dong Yuan. Rocks and trees, animated with fluttering texture strokes, dots, color washes, and daubs of bright mineral pigment, pulse with a calligraphic energy barely contained within the traditional landscape structure. Encircled by this energized mountainscape, the retreat becomes a reservoir of calm at the vortex of a world whose dynamic configurations embody nature's creative potential but may also suggest the ever-shifting terrain of political power.
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