The Virtuous Being
This work is a complex and layered homage to the history of literati gardens. The scroll begins by reimagining the most famous garden painting in Chinese history, Wang Wei’s (699–759) Wangchuan Villa, as a series of ghostly ruins. Slowly, the scroll transitions to color from black and white. The painting then shifts to an exploration of the Ming-dynasty garden of the scholar Wang Shizhen, in Taicang, Jiangsu. From there, Hao takes the viewer on a journey to the present day, where Wang’s garden, which was destroyed in the twentieth century, has been rebuilt. The new garden features a garish Ferris wheel, which Hao shows spinning off its axis and spewing its cars across the scroll, across boundaries of space and time.
Artwork Details
- 當代 郝量 此君圖 卷
- Title: The Virtuous Being
- Artist: Hao Liang (Chinese, born 1983)
- Date: 2015
- Culture: China
- Medium: Handscroll; ink and color on silk, plus research materials of mixed media
- Dimensions: Image: 15 3/16 in. × 30 ft. 2 3/16 in. (38.5 × 920 cm)
Overall with mounting: 15 3/4 in. × 43 ft. 9/16 in. (40 × 1312 cm) - Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Purchase, Anonymous Gifts, 2017
- Object Number: 2017.299a–s
- Rights and Reproduction: Courtesy Hao Liang and Vitamin Creative Space
- Curatorial Department: Asian Art
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Stele: Song dynasty (960–1279), 960–68; rubbing: 20th century
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