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Landscapes, Figures, and Flowers

dated 1618–22
Not on view
This exquisite album, done when Chen Hongshou was between twenty and twenty-four, exhibits a broad range of subject matter and an extraordinarily fastidious brush style that attest to his reputation as a youthful prodigy. Not long after the album was completed, the noted connoisseur and artist Chen Jiru added his critical comments opposite several of the leaves in the album, a further confirmation of Chen Hongshou's recognition among his contemporaries.

In the first leaf, the bleak scene of an untended garden presents a powerful image of the decay infecting late Ming society just twenty–five years before the dynasty was toppled by the Manchus. In his accompanying inscription Chen asks, "Does anybody notice?" In subsequent leaves, Chen's evocations of Li Gonglin's (ca. 1041–1106) monochrome drawing (baimiao) figural style, Ni Zan's (1306–1374) dry trees, Wang Meng's (ca. 1308–1385) cloudlike mountains, and Qian Xuan's (ca. 1235–before 1307) archaic "blue-and-green" landscapes reveal his command of past idioms and his affinity for earlier scholar-recluse artists, while a depiction of the Solitary Elegant Peak in Guilin reveals Chen's early interest in the fantastic landscapes of the eccentric professional artist Wu Bin (ca. 1583–1626).

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • 明/清　陳洪綬　山水人物花卉圖　冊
  • Title: Landscapes, Figures, and Flowers
  • Artist: Chen Hongshou (Chinese, 1598/99–1652)
  • Period: Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
  • Date: dated 1618–22
  • Culture: China
  • Medium: Album of twelve leaves; ink and color on paper
  • Dimensions: Image: 8 3/4 × 3 5/8 in. (22.2 × 9.2 cm)
    Inscription: 8 3/4 × 3 5/8 in. (22.2 × 9.2 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Friends of Far Eastern Art Gifts, 1985
  • Object Number: 1985.121a–l
  • Curatorial Department: Asian Art

More Artwork

More Artwork
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Vase of Flowers, Chen Hongshou Chinese, Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk, China
Vase of Flowers
Chen Hongshou
Calligraphy, Chen Hongshou Chinese, Hanging scroll; ink on green paper, China
Calligraphy
Chen Hongshou
Scholar-recluse in blue-green landscape, Chen Hongshou Chinese, Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk, China
Scholar-recluse in blue-green landscape
Chen Hongshou
1633
Landscape, Chen Hongshou Chinese, Folding fan mounted as an album leaf; ink and color on gold paper, China
Landscape
Chen Hongshou
mid-17th century
Blue and Green Landscape with Figure, Chen Hongshou Chinese, Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk, China
Blue and Green Landscape with Figure
Chen Hongshou
20th century

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