Who painted 南宋夏珪山市晴嵐圖冊頁|Mountain Market, Clearing Mist?

南宋夏珪山市晴嵐圖冊頁|Mountain Market, Clearing Mist was painted by Xia Gui in early 13th century.

Where can I see 南宋夏珪山市晴嵐圖冊頁|Mountain Market, Clearing Mist?

南宋夏珪山市晴嵐圖冊頁|Mountain Market, Clearing Mist is held by Metropolitan Museum of Art.

What movement is 南宋夏珪山市晴嵐圖冊頁|Mountain Market, Clearing Mist?

南宋夏珪山市晴嵐圖冊頁|Mountain Market, Clearing Mist is associated with Song dynasty landscape.

Artwork

南宋夏珪山市晴嵐圖冊頁|Mountain Market, Clearing Mist

Xia Gui , 1215

南宋夏珪山市晴嵐圖冊頁|Mountain Market, Clearing Mist is an ink painting by the Song dynasty landscape artist Xia Gui. It dates from 1215 and is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

About this work

Technique & Style

The silk support serves as the foundation for the ink application, allowing the handling associated with Xia Gui's approach to natural scenery.

Mountain Market, Clearing Mist is an album leaf executed in ink on silk, created by the Southern Song artist Xia Gui around 1215. The work measures 24.8 cm in height and 21.3 cm in width, representing a landscape genre piece currently held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Stylistically, the painting depicts mountainous terrain and atmospheric landscape elements, using the monochromatic ink medium characteristic of the period's landscape tradition.

The silk support serves as the foundation for the ink application, allowing the handling associated with Xia Gui's approach to natural scenery. The composition focuses on the interplay of mountains and mist, consistent with the album-leaf format's intimate scale.

History & Provenance

Created around 1215 by the Southern Song dynasty artist Xia Gui in China, this album leaf is executed in ink on silk and measures 24.8 cm in height by 21.3 cm in width. Titled Mountain Market, Clearing Mist, it belongs to the landscape genre and is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The available source does not detail an accession number, an ownership chain prior to the museum, or a specific exhibition history for the work.

Overview

Mountain Market, Clearing Mist is a landscape painting created by Xia Gui in 1215 during the Southern Song dynasty. Rendered in ink on silk as an album leaf, this work captures a towering mountain emerging from a veil of soft mist. The composition subtly integrates human presence within the vast natural setting, depicting small dwellings and figures nestled into the slopes. It exemplifies the refined aesthetic of Chinese landscape art from this period.

Subject & Meaning

The composition centers on a formidable mountain, its lower reaches obscured by an ethereal mist that seems to dissolve into the upper atmosphere. Within this grand natural expanse, miniature human habitations and figures are discernible, carefully integrated into the contours of the terrain. This juxtaposition highlights the immense scale of nature while acknowledging the persistent, yet humble, presence of human life within it, a common theme in East Asian landscape art.

Context

This album leaf belongs to a rich tradition of Chinese landscape painting, where artists explored the expressive potential of ink to depict complex natural worlds. During the Southern Song dynasty, monochrome ink painting reached a peak of sophistication, often conveying philosophical ideas about humanity's place in the cosmos. Works like "Mountain Market, Clearing Mist" illustrate how a limited palette could evoke profound depth and atmosphere, shaping an entire visual experience through subtle tonal variations.