Wang Xizhi Watching Geese

Wang Xizhi Watching Geese

Qian Xuan  (Chinese, ca. 1235–before 1307)

Period:

Yuan dynasty (1271–1368)

Date:

ca. 1295

Culture:

China

Medium:

Handscroll; ink, color, and gold on paper

Dimensions:

Image: 9 1/8 x 36 1/2 in. (23.2 x 92.7 cm) Overall with mounting: 11 x 418 13/16 in. (27.9 x 1063.8 cm)

Classification:

Paintings

After the fall of Hangzhou, the Southern Song capital, in 1276, the artist Qian Xuan chose to live as an yimin, a “leftover subject” of the dynasty. Painted in his deliberately primitive “blue-and-green” style, this handscroll illustrates the story of Wang Xizhi (  303 – 361), the calligraphy master of legendary fame and a practitioner of Daoist alchemy, who was said to derive inspiration from natural forms such as the graceful neck movements of geese. In creating a dreamlike evocation of antiquity, the artist prevented a realistic reading of his picture space as a way of asserting the disjuncture he felt after the fall of the Song royal house.