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Poet Li Bai
Fu Baoshi Chinese
Not on view
Seated in a garden with blossoming plums, the poet Li Bai (701–762) gets drunk to set his soul free, and yet his gaze expresses deep emotion, as if seeing all life’s affairs unfolding. Painted two days before the artist’s sixtieth birthday, this is, according to the artist’s inscription, the most satisfactory of all of Fu’s portrayals of Li Bai. In a modest tone, Fu wonders if it has captured a tiny bit of the poet’s spirit.
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