Wang Xizhi Watching Geese
Item
- Title
- Wang Xizhi Watching Geese
- Description
- After the fall of Hangzhou, the Southern Song capital, in 1276, the artist Qian Xuan chose to live as an yimin, a “leftover subject” of the dynasty. Painted in his deliberately primitive “blue-and-green” style, this handscroll illustrates the story of Wang Xizhi ( 303 – 361), the calligraphy master of legendary fame and a practitioner of Daoist alchemy, who was said to derive inspiration from natural forms such as the graceful neck movements of geese. In creating a dreamlike evocation of antiquity, the artist prevented a realistic reading of his picture space as a way of asserting the disjuncture he felt after the fall of the Song royal house.
- Identifier
- Painting, Chinese
- Creator
- Qian, Xuan, 1235-1301
- Date
- Yuan dynasty (1271–1368)
- Subject
- Landscapes
- Format
- Image: 9 1/8 x 36 1/2 in. (23.2 x 92.7 cm)
- Overall with mounting: 11 x 418 13/16 in. (27.9 x 1063.8 cm)
- Language
- Chinese (traditional) (language)
- Rights Holder
- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.)
- Contributor
- C. C. Wang Family, Gift of The Dillon Fund, 1973
- Item sets
- Chinese Painting Masterpieces in America
