Landscape with a poem by Wang Wei
In the 1800s, Li Kui was among a group of painters developing new styles in China’s Guangdong Province. His muted blue and ochre palette seems to pay homage to the seventeenth-century painter Shitao, one of his prime inspirations, but the mountain’s thick, fractured contour lines reflect Li’s original voice. The artist manipulated dry ink to create distant hazy peaks and waterfalls that tumble into puffs of vapor. Beneath the pines, a monk-like figure tucks his hands and bows to a traveling scholar. Their unpainted faces leave room for contemplative imagination. In the void of the sky, Li transcribed a couplet by the Tang-dynasty poet Wang Wei (699–759):
A stream’s sounds choked on steep-pitched stones,
And hues of sunlight were chilled by green pines.
—Translation by Stephen Owen
A stream’s sounds choked on steep-pitched stones,
And hues of sunlight were chilled by green pines.
—Translation by Stephen Owen
Artwork Details
- 清 李魁 王維詩意圖 軸
- Title: Landscape with a poem by Wang Wei
- Artist: Li Kui (Chinese, 1789–1876)
- Period: Qing dynasty (1644–1911)
- Date: 19th century
- Culture: China
- Medium: Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper
- Dimensions: Image: 57 × 15 5/16 in. (144.8 × 38.9 cm)
Overall with mounting: 95 1/4 × 22 1/4 in. (241.9 × 56.5 cm)
Overall with knobs: 95 1/4 × 25 1/4 in. (241.9 × 64.1 cm) - Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Funds from various donors, 2024
- Object Number: 2024.295
- Curatorial Department: Asian Art
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