Artifact World Gallery
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清　吳山濤　山水圖　扇|Riverscape with moored boats by Wu Shantao

Wu Shantao · late 17th or early 18th century

This is 'Riverscape with moored boats,' painted in 1667 by the Chinese artist Wu Shantao. It is currently held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

What you're looking at is a crime of transformation. See those faint vertical creases running through the ink? This painting used to be a folding fan. It was held in someone's hand, close enough to feel their breath, opened and closed with a flick of the wrist.

Sometime after the artist's death in the early 18th century, the painting was taken apart. The delicate ink-on-gold paper was cut from its bamboo ribs, flattened under pressure, and remounted as a flat album leaf. A handheld, personal object became a passive one behind glass. The material itself, gold-leaf paper, was chosen by Wu Shantao to make the uninked areas shimmer like moving water when the fan moved. Now, it glows softly under museum lights.

A painting dissected and reassembled. Is it the same object it was in 1667?

Details

Two boats wait. Mist swallows the far shore.
Two boats wait. Mist swallows the far shore.
But the painting itself was taken apart.
But the painting itself was taken apart.
Sometime after 1710, someone removed it from its bamboo ribs.
Sometime after 1710, someone removed it from its bamboo ribs.
What was held now lies still, gold shining through the ink.
What was held now lies still, gold shining through the ink.
The dominant landmass rendered in layered ink washes; its angular strokes contrast with the soft mist below, demonstrating the painter's command of texture conventions (cun) for rocky terrain
The dominant landmass rendered in layered ink washes; its angular strokes contrast with the soft mist below, demonstrating the painter's command of texture conventions (cun) for rocky terrain
Transcript

It doesn't look like a crime scene. Two boats wait. Mist swallows the far shore. But the painting itself was taken apart. Those vertical lines are the ghost of the fan it once was. Sometime after 1710, someone removed it from its bamboo ribs. They flattened the curve and pressed it into an album. What was held now lies still, gold shining through the ink.