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Returning Home

ca. 1695
Not on view
Landscapes alternate with flowers in this album of twenty-four small leaves of paintings and poetic comments that is designed to be perused slowly, one pair of leaves at a time. Each painting and its accompanying poem were conceived as a single expressive image in a superb harmony of painting, poetry, and calligraphy. The paintings are "written" with the same type of brushstrokes as the calligraphy, while in the "painterly" calligraphy individual characters and brushstrokes in varying sizes and ink tones frequently imitate such pictorial motifs as orchid petals and leaves and misty and wavy landscape elements. Even the painter's seals are integrated into the design.

Shitao ("Stone Wave"), a scion of the Ming imperial family, became a monk and a painter after the Manchu conquest of 1644. After many years of wandering from place to place in the south and spending nearly three years in Beijing, he "returned home" to Yangzhou toward the end of 1692.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • 清　石濤 (朱若極)　歸棹　冊
  • Title: Returning Home
  • Artist: Shitao (Zhu Ruoji) (Chinese, 1642–1707)
  • Period: Qing dynasty (1644–1911)
  • Date: ca. 1695
  • Culture: China
  • Medium: Album of twelve leaves; ink and color on paper
  • Dimensions: Image (each): 6 1/2 × 4 1/8 in. (16.5 × 10.5 cm)
    Each leaf with painting: 8 5/16 × 5 5/16 in. (21.1 × 13.5 cm)
    Each double leaf unfolded: 8 5/16 × 10 5/8 in. (21.1 × 27 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: From the P. Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Family, Gift of Wen and Constance Fong, in honor of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Dillon, 1976
  • Object Number: 1976.280a–n
  • Curatorial Department: Asian Art

Audio

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7409. Returning Home

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More Artwork

More Artwork
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(Copy after) The Sixteen Luohans, Shitao (Zhu Ruoji) Chinese, Handscroll; ink on paper, China
(Copy after) The Sixteen Luohans
Shitao (Zhu Ruoji)
19th–early 20th century
Five poems, Shitao (Zhu Ruoji) Chinese, Folding fan mounted as an album leaf; ink on paper, China
Five poems
Shitao (Zhu Ruoji)
ca. 1700
Landscapes of the Four Seasons, Shitao (Zhu Ruoji) Chinese, Album of eight leaves; ink and color on paper, China
Landscapes of the Four Seasons
Shitao (Zhu Ruoji)
Landscape, Shitao (Zhu Ruoji) Chinese, Folding fan mounted as an album leaf; ink and color on gold-flecked paper, China
Landscape
Shitao (Zhu Ruoji)
dated 1699
Landscape Painted on the Double Ninth Festival, Shitao (Zhu Ruoji) Chinese, Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper, China
Landscape Painted on the Double Ninth Festival
Shitao (Zhu Ruoji)
dated 1705

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