Paintings after Ancient Masters: Mr. Five Willows (Wuliu), Tao Yuanming

1598–1652

Chen Hongshou 陳洪綬

(Chinese, 1598/99–1652)

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Culture

China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)

Medium

album leaf, ink and color on silk

Measurements

Overall: 30.2 x 26.7 cm (11 7/8 x 10 1/2 in.)

Credit Line

John L. Severance Fund 1979.27.2.12

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Location

Not on view

Did You Know?

This painting is dominated by a huge willow tree, alluding to poet Tao Yuanming, who used the name "Master of the Five Willows."

Description

The twenty paintings in this double-album by Chen Hongshou include landscapes, figures, and flowers. It also has one leaf featuring a woman, an often-used subject not found in the other albums from the latter part of his career. His late works are wonderful summations of Chen's peculiar and quirky art--archaistic, hyper-refined--but without accompanying shallowness or sentimentality.

His figures and landscapes in the late albums are miniaturized, not unlike the small Chinese gardens, or the carefully selected small table rocks or old roots used for contemplation to see the world in miniature. This loss of scale is quite deliberate and reflects the psychological situation of a depressed class like the Ming loyalist officials and scholars, deprived of their integrity and honor, and forced to lead a diminished and restricted existence.