Paintings after Ancient Masters: Lotus and Rocks
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: Lotus and Rocks is a 1625 unspecified by Chen Hongshou, a Ming Painting work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a single lotus flower rising from jagged rocks, painted in black ink on paper. Chen Hongshou often copied old masters, but he twisted the rules. Here, the lotus looks almost too perfect—like a porcelain doll of a flower. The rocks are sharp, almost cartoonish, yet the whole thing feels quiet and balanced. If you like this mix of precise and playful, look up china, ming dynasty (1368–1644) for more artists who bent tradition.
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. Chen's late works are wonderful summations of his 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 made this double album with twenty paintings for a friend, Lin Zhongqing.
Read the full account in the museum source.
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