Ducks and Peach Blossoms
Persecuted and imprisoned for his bourgeois individualism during the Cultural Revolution, Shi Lu escaped death only after being diagnosed as a schizophrenic. During this period he turned increasingly to the practice of calligraphy and calligraphic painting. In this work, dating to the early 1970s, the fragmented image of three swimming ducks matches the tremulous quality of Shi Lu's inscription:
How ducks make merry with peach blossoms in spring water.
(Wen Fong, trans., Between Two Cultures: Late-Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century Chinese Paintings from the Robert H. Ellsworth Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art [New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001], p. 244)
How ducks make merry with peach blossoms in spring water.
(Wen Fong, trans., Between Two Cultures: Late-Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century Chinese Paintings from the Robert H. Ellsworth Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art [New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001], p. 244)
Artwork Details
- 近代 石魯 桃花游鴨圖 卷
- Title: Ducks and Peach Blossoms
- Artist: Shi Lu (Chinese, 1919–1982)
- Date: early 1970s
- Culture: China
- Medium: Horizontal hanging scroll; ink and color on paper
- Dimensions: Image: 26 3/4 × 37 in. (67.9 × 94 cm)
Overall with mounting: 78 × 41 in. (198.1 × 104.1 cm)
Overall with knobs: 78 × 45 in. (198.1 × 114.3 cm) - Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Gift of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, in memory of La Ferne Hatfield Ellsworth, 1986
- Object Number: 1986.267.346
- Curatorial Department: Asian Art
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