Paintings after Ancient Masters: Mr. Five Willows (Wuliu), Tao Yuanming
1625
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
About the artist
1625
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Paintings after Ancient Masters: Mr. Five Willows (Wuliu), Tao Yuanming is a 1625 unspecified by Chen Hongshou, a Chinese Orthodox School work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a thin man in a plain robe standing under five willow trees. Chen Hongshou painted this in the 1600s, but the man is from a poem written a thousand years earlier. The artist liked old stories—he made them look fresh by giving the trees sharp, almost cartoonish leaves and putting the man in a pose that feels both stiff and alive. If you like how Chen mixes old tales with bold lines, look up Ming dynasty (1368–1644) paintings next.
The twenty paintings in this double-album by Chen Hongshou include landscapes, figures, and flowers. It also has one leaf featuring a woman, an often-used subject not found in the other albums from the latter part of his career. His late works are wonderful summations of Chen's peculiar and quirky art--archaistic, hyper-refined--but without accompanying shallowness or sentimentality. His figures and landscapes in the late albums are miniaturized, not unlike the small Chinese gardens, or the carefully selected small table rocks or old roots used for contemplation to see the world in miniature.…
This painting is dominated by a huge willow tree, alluding to poet Tao Yuanming, who used the name "Master of the Five Willows."
Read the full account in the museum source.
