Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Rhapsody on the Epang Palace
Wang Chong Chinese
Not on view
明 王寵 楷書阿房宮賦 冊 紙本
Though Wang Chong died young, he is remembered for his achievements in semicursive and small standard scripts. This three-leaf album, a rare surviving example of Wang’s small standard script, exhibits the combination of sophistication and strategic naïveté that is admired in his work. In general, Wang follows standard rules of character structure, but, in select spots, he surprises the viewer with a calculated imbalance, weighting a character up or down, left or right. Likewise, his brushwork is angular and sharp in some places, rounded and smooth in others. These subtle shifts operate like inside jokes for students of calligraphy and create an effect at once wise and whimsical, elegant but not slick.
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