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"Splashed-color" landscape

1965
Not on view
After 1949 Zhang Daqian lived in Hong Kong and India before building residences in Brazil, California, and Taiwan. His long residency outside China inevitably brought him into contact with modern Western art, including Abstract Expressionism. This work, painted with intense mineral colors and broad washes of layered ink, may represent Zhang's response to these influences.
Zhang maintained that such works, which he first made in Europe in 1956, derived from the "broken-ink" techniques of random splashing and soaking used by Tang-dynasty (618-906) artists, but it seems more likely that Western abstract art encouraged him to develop the Japanese technique of splashed colors that he had used in earlier works. He welcomed the liberating effect of this painting mode, which gave a spontaneity to his compositions. In spite of their abstract qualities, however, these paintings remain resolutely descriptive of the natural world. Here, Zhang applied ink and color in a seemingly random manner, then added contour lines and other details that transform the composition into a highly suggestive vision of storm—engulfed mountains illuminated by a burst of sunlight that has turned the somber clouds iridescent.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • 近現代 張大千 潑彩山水 軸
  • Title: "Splashed-color" landscape
  • Artist: Chang Dai-chien (Chinese, 1899–1983)
  • Date: 1965
  • Culture: China
  • Medium: Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper
  • Dimensions: Image: 23 3/4 x 37 3/4 in. (60.3 x 95.9 cm)
    Overall with knobs: 67 3/4 x 47 1/8 in. (172.1 x 119.7 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Gift of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, in memory of La Ferne Hatfield Ellsworth, 1986
  • Object Number: 1986.267.361
  • Curatorial Department: Asian Art

More Artwork

More Artwork
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White Lotus, Chang Dai-chien Chinese, Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper, China
White Lotus
Chang Dai-chien
dated 1947
Mushrooms, Chang Dai-chien Chinese, Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper, China
Mushrooms
Chang Dai-chien
dated 1965
Through Ancient Eyes after Shitao , Chang Dai-chien Chinese, Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper, China

Through Ancient Eyes after Shitao

Chang Dai-chien
ca. 1920–22
Red Orchid, Chang Dai-chien Chinese, Two-sided folding fan mounted as an album leaf; ink and color on gold-flecked paper, China
Red Orchid
Chang Dai-chien
1950
Mountain Vegetables, Chang Dai-chien Chinese, Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper, China
Mountain Vegetables
Chang Dai-chien
dated 1965

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