Paintings after Ancient Masters: Chrysanthemum and Rock
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: Chrysanthemum and Rock is a 1625 unspecified by Chen Hongshou, a Ming Painting work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a single chrysanthemum flower next to a jagged rock, painted in black ink on paper. Chen Hongshou copied old masters but made each line his own—twisted, sharp, almost nervous. The rock looks like it could crumble, yet the flower stands stiff, as if posing for a portrait. This wasn’t just copying; it was arguing with the past. Look up more works in the subject: china, ming dynasty (1368–1644).
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.…
Chrysanthemums evoke the poet Tao Yuanming (365–427 CE) who turned down a government career during a fraught political era.
Read the full account in the museum source.
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