Baoshi Hill in the Ancient Style, No. 1
Yan Shanchun was raised in Hangzhou, a historically important city that is home to West Lake, one of China’s most famous sites. These ghostly images are based in part on Yan’s memories of West Lake as a child and art student in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. They also engage with Chinese painting history. The artist named each leaf for a different old master painter whose style he evokes in each image, including Dong Qichang (1555–1636) and Gong Xian (1619–1689). Yan’s unusual copperplate printing process involves treating the plates with a mixture of sulfur and olive oil to create recesses for ink. The unpredictable results convey the sense of brush traces—a subtle nod to the ink painting tradition that has inspired Yan.
Artwork Details
- 當代 嚴善錞 寶石山擬古人意（一） 銅板版畫
- Title: Baoshi Hill in the Ancient Style, No. 1
- Artist: Yan Shanchun (Chinese, born 1957)
- Date: 2018
- Culture: China
- Medium: Album of sixteen copperplate etchings
- Dimensions: Image (each): 9 7/16 × 17 1/2 in. (24 × 44.5 cm)
Sheet (each): 13 3/4 × 20 1/16 in. (35 × 51 cm)
Album closed: 13 3/4 x 20 1/8 in. (34.9 x 51.1 cm) - Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Gift of Ting Chung Dick Chen, 2018
- Object Number: 2018.897a–p
- Curatorial Department: Asian Art
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