hanging scroll; painting BM-1975-0303-0.3

Period:Qing dynasty Production date:1773
Materials:paper
Technique:painted
Subjects:author/poet
Dimensions:Height: 167.50 centimetres (image) Height: 240 centimetres (mount) Width: 56.60 centimetres (image) Width: 75.50 centimetres (mount)

Description:
Hanging scroll. Portraits of the poets Wang Shizhen and Zhu Yizun with inscriptions and colophons. The latter surround the painting, becoming an integral part of the composition. Painted in ink on paper.
IMG


Comments:Farrer 1990, cat. 7:”Luo Ping is one of a group of painters often known as the Eccentric Masters of Yangzhou. They were among a large number of painters attracted to Yangzhou in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by the city’s immense wealth. During this period Yangzhou became the richest city in China through the control of such important commodities as rice, silk and salt. The rich merchants living in Yangzhou were collectors of old paintings as well as patrons of contemporary artists. Luo Ping and the other painters of this group, who included Gao Fenghan (cat. nos. 22-24, 54-57), did not paint in a single common style, but they sought to explore new fields through their experimentation with brush and ink, and they often produced works which were stylistically unconventional.Luo Ping painted many portraits. This painting portrays the two poets Wang Shizhen (1634-1711) and Zhu Yizun (1629-1709). Wang, from Shandong province, was the first poet of the early Qing dynasty and was closely rivalled by Zhu from Zhejiang province. In this painting Wang stands before a pine tree and zhu before a Juniper tree. The vine which climbs one trunk and crosses the top of the other tree represents the link between the two men. Wang’s pre-eminence is shown both by his central position slightly nearer the viewer and by the pine as the nobler of the two trees. A certain intentional awkwardness in the painting, characteristic of the Yangzhou masters, is seen in the figures which are delineated in light outline standing against the more prominent brushwork of the trees and rocks behind. The painting is surrounded by many poems and inscriptions, nearly all of which were written in 1773 for the scholar Dong Yuandu who commissioned the painting from Luo Ping. Luo Ping’s own inscription on the painting states that the painting was done in Dongchang in Shangong province where he spent most of the year. In this painting the Yangzhou master Jin Nong (1687-1763), the calligraphy was integrated into the painting so it became a dominant element in the composition. This stepped beyond the practice of previous tradition in which calligraphy, however important its content, accompanied the painting and never superseded it in importance.”