Reading by the Window near a Pine Tree
Feng Zikai Chinese
Not on view
Feng Zikai developed an abbreviated, almost cartoonish style of painting in response to calls by intellectuals for a twentieth-century Chinese art that could be understood by common people. Here, he renders a classic theme from Chinese landscape painting—a reading scholar in a mountain pavilion—in his new manner, merging conventions of the past with the needs of his own day. The poem reads:
The leisurely white clouds come and go often.
Don’t mind if I never welcome you in or see you out.
Zikai
--Translation by Keita Itoh and Lawrence Wu
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