hanging scroll; painting BM-1965-1011-0.1

Period:Ming dynasty Production date:1543
Materials:paper
Technique:painted
Subjects:landscape tree/bush
Dimensions:Height: 90.50 centimetres (image) Height: 222 centimetres (mount) Width: 31 centimetres (image) Width: 61 centimetres (mount)

Description:
Hanging scroll. Landscape. Bare trees in winter with stream. Reference to Li Cheng (919-67). Painted in a dry style. Inscriptions and seals. Ink on paper.
IMG


Comments:Rawson 1992:Wen Zhengming was the leading amateur-literati painter of the 16th century and, with Shen Zhou (1427-1509), one of the principal artists of the Wu school of the scholars-officials. Both of them looked back to the work of the Yuan masters and were preoccupied with the identification of different forms of brushwork as suitably expressive for different occasions. This painting was said by him to have been inspired by the work of Li Cheng, a tenth-century landscape artist. Its spare, rather dry brushwork again repeats the deliberately simple, austere quality that is the feature of many so-called literati paintings.