Day 77 - Plate with "reclusive landscape"
August 1, 2018
Gallery 211 contains works illustrating another theme, the "landscape of reclusion." The works represent the idea of landscape as a retreat from the world's dangers and from the hurly-burly of politics and professional service. According to a wall sign, such works frequently depict retired gentlemen and scholars seated in pavilions sipping tea, surrounded by majestic mountains -- an altogether peaceful, meditative, and beautiful environment. (Of course,I suppose these scholars would have had to be men of means to afford such retreats.)
A poem by Lu Yin, a 3rd century C.E. poet, that is reproduced on a wall placard, expresses this notion perfectly:
A poem by Lu Yin, a 3rd century C.E. poet, that is reproduced on a wall placard, expresses this notion perfectly:
Living in retirement beyond the world,
Silently enjoying isolation,
I pull the rope of my door tighter,
And grip tight the wine jug.
My spirit is tuned to the spring season;
At the fall of the year there is autumn in my heart,
Thus following the ways of heaven and earth.
My cottage becomes a universe.
Most of the works on display in the gallery are scrolls, which date from the Ming dynasty straight through to the 20th century. But today's object is instead a porcelain plate, 12 inches or so in diameter, painted in cobalt blue under a transparent glaze and dating to ca.1670 (the Qing dynasty). It shows, in the background, towering mountains, with a small orb in the sky- either the sun or a full moon- and, in the middle ground, a raised pavilion, along with an unpainted area that suggests mist rising above a river. The river's surface is also indicated by loose horizontal brushstrokes.In the foreground, a tall pine tree on the right, its spiky leaves carefully articulated, balances the rocky cliff on the left. Seated on what appears to be a neck of land jutting out over the water is the small figure of a lone man, described in the caption as a scholar. He doesn't appear to be "doing" anything - not sipping tea, not reading - just looking out at the natural splendor around him.
Most of the works on display in the gallery are scrolls, which date from the Ming dynasty straight through to the 20th century. But today's object is instead a porcelain plate, 12 inches or so in diameter, painted in cobalt blue under a transparent glaze and dating to ca.1670 (the Qing dynasty). It shows, in the background, towering mountains, with a small orb in the sky- either the sun or a full moon- and, in the middle ground, a raised pavilion, along with an unpainted area that suggests mist rising above a river. The river's surface is also indicated by loose horizontal brushstrokes.In the foreground, a tall pine tree on the right, its spiky leaves carefully articulated, balances the rocky cliff on the left. Seated on what appears to be a neck of land jutting out over the water is the small figure of a lone man, described in the caption as a scholar. He doesn't appear to be "doing" anything - not sipping tea, not reading - just looking out at the natural splendor around him.
These Chinese galleries and the works they contain are helping me to define my own aesthetic preferences: for space rather than crowdedness, for simplicity, for a degree of balance. I suppose these preferences have been 70 years in the making, but I wonder whether this museum experience will stretch them in unexpected ways. Or maybe this characterization of what I like is too simple, and I will discover that as well.
Interesting to read this at the end of a trip to Alaska. There was an observation in the Anchorage Museum that outsiders romanticized the landscape, while Alaska Native artists portrayed themselves within it, part of it--not meditative at all. I didn't find this to be entirely true, though. But didn't China have mountain people striving to live outside the state?
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