In the Chinese popular imagination, mendicant monks, conjurers, and mysterious hermits were often thought to be disguised “living luohans,” or Buddhist holy men capable of producing miracles. When government corruption and ineptitude imperiled social order, as it did in late Ming times, such superstitious messianic beliefs became more widespread. Here, in one of his earliest extant works, Wu Bin embraced an archaic figure style and followed the tradition of depicting luohans as fantastic eccentrics whose grotesque features belie their inner spiritual nature. Wu’s humorous painting may have had a serious message: holiness can be concealed within an outwardly incongruous form.
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明 吳彬 十六羅漢圖 卷
Title:The Sixteen Luohans
Artist:Wu Bin (active ca. 1583–1626)
Period:Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
Date:dated 1591
Culture:China
Medium:Handscroll; ink and color on paper
Dimensions:Image: 12 5/8 x 163 9/16 in. (32.1 x 415.4 cm) Overall with mounting: 13 1/4 x 398 1/16 in. (33.7 x 1011.1 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Edward Elliott Family Collection, Gift of Douglas Dillon, 1986
Accession Number:1986.266.4
By 1600 Wu Bin, who began painting in his native Fujian Province, had moved to the southern capital, Nanjing, where he served as a court-appointed painter specializing in landscapes and Buddhist subjects. A lifelong devotee of Buddhism, Wu entered an order of untonsured monks affiliated with the Chan Buddhist Qixia Temple in Nanjing.
In Chinese popular imagination, mendicant monks, conjurors, and mysterious hermits were often thought to be disguised “living luohans,” or Buddhist holy men capable of magic and miracles. When government corruption and ineptitude imperiled social order, as it did in late Ming times, such superstitious messianic beliefs became more widespread.
Reveling in oddity, Wu Bin’s art represents a fin-de-siècle rebellion in painting style. In The Sixteen Luohans, one of his earliest extant works, the artist has already begun to invent an eccentric archaism in figure painting that was to influence late Ming figure painters, most notably Chen Hongshou (1598–1652; acc. no. 2005.112a–l), as well as woodblock artists. The theatrical nature of the luohan figures suggests that the artist may have been inspired by popular religious dramas or festival processions.
[Maxwell K. Hearn, How to Read Chinese Paintings, Yale University Press, 2008]
Inscription: Artist’s inscription and signature (2 columns in seal script)
Painted in a guesthouse in Wenling [Quanzhou, Fujian Province] in the xinmao year of the Wanli reign era [1591], Wu bin.
J. D. Chen , Shanghai and Hong Kong (before1956); Chiang Er-shih , New York (until 1971; Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc. New York, Chinese Paintings from the Chiang Er-shih Collection, May 5, 1971, lot 22; Edward Elliott , until 1981; Douglas Dillon American, New York (1981–1986; donated to MMA; on loan to MMA since 1981 )
Princeton University Art Museum. "Images of the Mind: Selections from the Edward L. Elliot Family and John B. Elliott Collections of Chinese Calligraphy and Painting at the Art Museum, Princeton University," April 15–June 17, 1984.
New York. China House Gallery. "Kernels of Energy, Bones of Earth," October 23, 1985–January 29, 1986.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Images of the Mind: Selections from the Edward L. Elliot Family and John B. Elliott Collections of Chinese Calligraphy and Painting at the Art Museum, Princeton University," September 18, 1987–January 10, 1988.
Lawrence. Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas. "Latter Days of the Law: Images of Chinese Buddhism, 850–1850," August 28, 1994–October 9, 1994.
Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. "Latter Days of the Law: Images of Chinese Buddhism, 850–1850," November 16, 1994–January 11, 1995.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The New Chinese Galleries: An Inaugural Installation," 1997.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The World of Scholars' Rocks: Gardens, Studios, and Paintings," February 1–August 20, 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. "The Douglas Dillon Legacy: Chinese Painting for the Metropolitan Museum," March 12–August 8, 2004.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Secular and Sacred: Scholars, Deities, and Immortals in Chinese Art," September 10, 2005–January 8, 2006.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Anatomy of a Masterpiece: How to Read Chinese Paintings," March 1–August 10, 2008.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Arts of the Ming Dynasty: China's Age of Brilliance," January 23–September 13, 2009.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Another World Lies Beyond: Chinese Art and the Divine," August 24, 2019–January 5, 2020.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Learning to Paint in Premodern China," February 18, 2023–January 7, 2024.
Suzuki Kei 鈴木敬, ed. Chûgoku kaiga sogo zuroku: Daiikan, Amerika-Kanada Hen 中國繪畫總合圖錄: 第一卷 アメリカ - カナダ 編 (Comprehensive illustrated catalog of Chinese paintings: vol. 1 American and Canadian collections) Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1982, pp. 134–35, cat. no. A17-063.
Fong, Wen C. et al. Images of the Mind: Selections from the Edward L. Elliott Family and John B. Elliott Collections of Chinese Calligraphy and Painting at the Art Museum, Princeton University. Exh. cat. Princeton, N.J.: Art Museum, Princeton University in association with Princeton University Press, 1984, p. 200, fig. 166.
Dunne, Claire. Carl Jung: Wounded Healer of the Soul: An Illustrated Biography. New York: Parabola Books, 2000, p. 99.
Bai, Qianshen. Fu Shan's World: The Transformation of Chinese Calligraphy in the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2003, p. 17, fig. 1.2.
Hearn, Maxwell K. How to Read Chinese Paintings. Exh. cat. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2008, pp. 132–41, cat. no. 32.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012, p. 99.
He Muwen 何慕文 (Hearn, Maxwell K.). Ruhe du Zhongguo hua: Daduhui Yishu Bowuguan cang Zhongguo shuhua jingpin daolan 如何读中国画 : 大都会艺术博物馆藏中国书画精品导览 (How to read Chinese paintings) Translated by Shi Jing 石静. Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2015, pp. 132–41, cat. no. 32.
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