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Paintings after Ancient Masters: Scholar with Staff and Brush

Chen Hongshou

1625

unspecified

From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art

Ming Painting Renaissance Baroque Portrait

Dominant colour

Paintings after Ancient Masters: Scholar with Staff and Brush is a 1625 unspecified by Chen Hongshou, a Ming Painting work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.

Who painted this?: Chen Hongshou
When & what style?: 1625 · Ming Painting
Where can I see it?: Cleveland Museum of Art

About this work

You see an old man in robes holding a brush. His face is lined. One hand grips a long staff. The other holds a small ink pot. Chen Hongshou painted this in the late Ming dynasty. His figures look both grand and a little odd. He liked sharp lines and odd proportions. His work feels like a quiet joke. Try this next: Chen Hongshou (Chinese, 1598/99–1652).

The story of this work

Overview

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.…

Read the full account in the museum source.