Paintings after Ancient Masters: Scholar Reading in a Thatched Hut by a Waterfall
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: Scholar Reading in a Thatched Hut by a Waterfall is a 1625 unspecified by Chen Hongshou, a Ming Painting work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
A lone scholar sits under a thatched roof, reading beside a rushing waterfall. Rocks and twisted pines frame the scene in black ink. Chen Hongshou painted this centuries after the Ming Dynasty fell, but he kept its old styles alive. His lines are crisp, almost like woodblock prints, yet the tiny details feel personal—like a quiet joke between the artist and the past. Look up the subject china, ming dynasty (1368–1644) to see how later artists like Chen kept its traditions breathing.
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.…
Chen Hongshou dedicated this album of 20 paintings to his friend Lin Zhongqing.
Read the full account in the museum source.
