A native of Suzhou, Zhang Xun maintained a peripatetic existence, supporting himself through tutoring and painting. Contemporaries note that he was widely learned, good at literary compositions, and an excellent calligrapher; in painting, he followed tenth-century prototypes, painting bamboo in the outline drawing method and landscapes in the manner of Juran (active ca. 960–95).
Adhering strictly to tenth-century models, this landscape in the Juran mode is uncompromisingly austere and abstract. Written when Zhang was about fifty, the poem echoes the melancholy of the uninhabited landscape:
On the rocky [landscape] pine blossoms fall and bloom again. The mountain Ailanthus, useless [for its timber], has grown to full size. No cart has ever reached this woodcutter's path. Now with hair gray, I have passed fifty years in vain.
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inscription
Artwork Details
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元 張遜 石上松花圖 軸
Title:Rocky Landscape with Pines
Artist:Zhang Xun (Chinese, ca. 1295–after 1349)
Period:Yuan dynasty (1271–1368)
Date:before 1346
Culture:China
Medium:Hanging scroll; ink on silk
Dimensions:Image: 35 3/4 × 16 3/4 in. (90.8 × 42.5 cm) Overall with mounting: 76 5/8 × 22 3/4 in. (194.6 × 57.8 cm) Overall with knobs: 76 5/8 × 26 1/8 in. (194.6 × 66.4 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Ex coll.: C. C. Wang Family, Gift of Oscar L. Tang Family, 2008
Object Number:2008.673
Inscription: Artist’s inscription and signature (3 columns in standard script)
In the rocky [landscape] pine blossoms fall and bloom again. The mountain Ailanthus, useless [for its timber], has grown to full size. No cart has ever reached this woodcutter's path. Now with gray hair, I have passed fifty years in vain.[1] Zhang Xun
石上松花落又開， 山樗無用亦成材。 蒲輪不到樵人徑， 白髮徒過五十來。 張遜
Artist's seal
Zhang Xun siyin 張遜私印
Inscriptions on the Painting
1. Li Zuan 李纘 (active mid-14th century), 2 columns in standard script, undated:
Layered peaks gather alum-head rocks, Cloudlike groves hold deep shadows. If you are not the Buddhist monk Juran, How can you understand the meaning of this brushwork?[2] Li Zuan
層巒聚礬石，雲木中蔽芾。 自非僧巨然，孰識用筆意。 李纘
2. Ni Zan 倪瓚 (1306–1374), 4 columns in standard script, dated 1346:
On the far shore forests and peaks glow with sunset clouds; At the foot of the mountains round boulders are gathered beside the winding stream. When will I put on [hiking] socks and sandals, And visit the Cloud Gate [Temple] and Ruoye Stream?[3]
I presented this painting to Zhongwen (unidentified) after having added a poem of my own, Ni Zan from Juwu [present-day Wuxi, Jiangsu] on the twelfth of the eighth lunar month in the sixth year of the Zhizheng reign era [August 28, 1346].[4]
Unidentified artist, 1 column in standard script, undated:
元張遜 《石上松花圖》，神品
Collectors’ seals
Wang Jiqian 王季遷 (C. C. Wang, 1907–2003) 震澤王氏寶武堂圖書記
Unidentified 思古
Illegible: 1
[1] Translated by Maxwell K. Hearn in Maxwell K. Hearn and Wen C. Fong, Along the Riverbank: Chinese Paintings from the C. C. Wang Family Collection, exhibition catalogue, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999, pp. 110.
[2] Translated by Maxwell K. Hearn in Maxwell K. Hearn and Wen C. Fong, Along the Riverbank: Chinese Paintings from the C. C. Wang Family Collection, exhibition catalogue, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999, pp. 110.
[3] The Ruoye Stream is located at the foot of Mount Ruoye in Shaoxing Xian, Zhejiang. The Cloud Gate Temple is situated on Ruoye Stream. The last two lines of Ni Zan's poem paraphrase lines from a poem by Du Fu (712-770), "Song offered to district defender Liu for his newly painted landscape screen," who wonders in the poem when he will again visit such scenic spots; see Xiao Difei, ed., Du Fu shixuan zhu (Annotated selection of Du Fu's poetry). Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1979, pp. 47-49. For translations of Du Fu's poem see Edna Worthley Underwood, Tu Fu, wanderer and minstrel under moons of Cathay. Tr. by Edna Worthley Underwood and Chi Hwang Chu (Portland: Mosher Press, 1929), p. 97 or Hardin T. McClelland, Art Themes in Chinese poetry (Seattle: Little Tusculum, 1936), p. 59. Thanks to Mr. Yiguo Zhang for this reference.
[4]Translated by Maxwell K. Hearn in Maxwell K. Hearn and Wen C. Fong, Along the Riverbank: Chinese Paintings from the C. C. Wang Family Collection, exhibition catalogue, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999, pp. 110.
Oscar L. Tang Family , New York (until 2008; donated to MMA)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Artist as Collector: Masterpieces of Chinese Painting from the C.C.Wang Family Collection," September 2, 1999–January 9, 2000.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "A Millennium of Chinese Painting: Masterpieces from the Permanent Collection," September 8, 2001–January 13, 2002.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Chinese Painting, Masterpieces from the Permanent Collection," August 28, 2004–February 20, 2005.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Art of the Brush: Chinese Painting and Calligraphy," March 12–August 14, 2005.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Journeys: Mapping the Earth and Mind in Chinese Art," February 10–August 26, 2007.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Landscapes Clear and Radiant: The Art of Wang Hui (1632–1717)," September 9, 2008–January 4, 2009.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Yuan Revolution: Art and Dynastic Change," August 21, 2010–January 9, 2011.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of Chinese Painting from The Met Collection (Rotation One)," October 31, 2015–October 11, 2016.
Cahill, James. An Index of Early Chinese Painters and Paintings: T'ang, Sung, and Yüan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.
Hearn, Maxwell K., and Wen C. Fong. Along the Riverbank: Chinese Paintings from the C. C. Wang Family Collection. Exh. cat. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999, pp. 107–109, pls. 6a–b.
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