Listening to the Zither Among Streams and Pines
Xie Shichen Chinese
Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
Not on view
Xie Shichen was a versatile artist whose paintings share features of both the Zhe School professionals and the Suzhou scholar-artists. Xie's "hemp-fiber" texture strokes and dark foliage dots derive from the eminent Suzhou amateur Shen Zhou (1427–1509), but his monumental composition, narrative subject matter, and bold brushwork owe more to the Nanjing professional Wu Wei (1459–1508). In this painting, a pair of scholars on a spring outing have paused to admire a blossoming plum tree that grows beneath the sheltering branches of an ancient pine. The nearby mountain torrent flows out of a deep valley where dense white clouds obscure the lower halves of precipitous peaks, including the towering central monolith whose position along the painting's vertical axis serves as an anchor to the entire composition. To the left of the peak, Xie inscribed a seven-character quatrain along with his signature.
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