Marvelous Verses without Sounds

Xiao Yuncong was born in Wuhu, northern Anhui, just up the Yangzi River from Nanjing. During his early years, he traveled to Nanjing multiple times to sit for the provincial examinations; after abandoning this path due to repeated failures, he continued to visit the city to interact with fellow painters and patrons. This work reflects Xiao’s approach to painting in his later years, in which he applied dry ink with supreme economy to form compositions of daring creativity. Xiao was among the early pioneers of this “dry, angular” mode, which came to typify Anhui painting in the second half of the seventeenth century. Translations of the artist’s inscriptions can be found on the Museum’s website.