Tao Yuanming

In wartime China during the 1940s, Fu Baoshi often turned to ancient subjects to express his grief, anger, and bewilderment at the troubled world around him. He continued to paint such themes, especially depictions of poets and famous poems, after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, though the new context gave them additional layers of meaning. Here, he depicts a reflective Tao Yuanming, whose decision to renounce official life and return to his farm made him the quintessential emblem of escape.