handscroll; painting BM-1963-0520-0.3

Period:Qing dynasty Production date:1666 (Dated)
Materials:paper
Technique:painted
Subjects:time/seasons landscape
Dimensions:Height: 31.80 centimetres (images) Height: 35.10 centimetres (scroll) Length: 65 centimetres (left image) Length: 65 centimetres (right image) Length: 894 centimetres (scroll (approx)) Weight: 0.80 kilograms

Description:
Album leaf mounted in handscroll form. Landscape painting by Kuncan (1612-1673). ‘Autumn’ and ‘Winter’ leaves from a set representing the ‘Four Seasons’, showing mountains and buildings, with inscription. Made of ink and colours on paper.
IMG


Comments:Rawson 1992:Kuncan exhibited enthusiasm for the long tradition of using brushwork to convey a personal experience rather than create a representation. The album to which this leaf belongs, representing the four seasons, is one of Kuncan’s finest works. The British Museum has the two leaves representing ‘Autumn’ and ‘Winter’; the leaf showing ‘Spring’ is in the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, and ‘Summer’ is in the Museum fur Ostasiatische Kunst, Berlin. Michaelson & Portal 2006:Chinese landscape painting dominated the artistic tradition at this time and was claimed to have a spiritual and aesthetic value above other categories of painting. From the Song dynasty onwards, Chinese theorists began to distinguish between the professional and the amateur ideals in painting. Painting was regarded as expressing the views of the cultivated individual, a means of self-expression. Artists were not so concerned with formal likeness and artistic style but more with the character and intellectual attitude of the individual. Kuncan was an artist who practised a more individualistic style than had been common earlier, but he still showed enthusiasm for the long tradition of using brushwork to convey a personal experience rather than to create an exact representation. Two sections of landscape, originally 2 album leaves, later made into a handscroll. 手卷. 山水共兩段，本為冊頁，後裝為手卷.