Portrait of Ren'an in a Landscape
Artist: Shitao (Zhu Ruoji) (Chinese, 1642–1707) Zhang Ziwei (Chinese, active late 17th century)
Period: Qing dynasty (1644–1911)
Date: dated 1684
Culture: China
Medium: Handscroll; ink and color on paper
Dimensions: 22 15/18 x 53 7/8 in. (58 x 136.8 cm)
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Purchase, The Dillon Fund Gift, 1987
Accession Number: 1987.149
Bamboo in Wind and Rain
Artist: Shitao (Zhu Ruoji) (Chinese, 1642–1707)
Period: Qing dynasty (1644–1911)
Date: ca. 1694
Culture: China
Medium: Hanging scroll; ink on paper
Dimensions: Image: 87 3/4 x 30 in. (222.9 x 76.2 cm) Overall with mounting: 132 1/4 x 37 3/8 in. (335.9 x 94.9 cm) Overall with knobs: 132 1/4 x 41 in. (335.9 x 104.1 cm)
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Edward Elliott Family Collection, Gift of Douglas Dillon, 1984
Accession Number: 1984.475.2
Shitao, one of the most outstanding landscape masters of his time, was also passionately in love with bamboo painting. On this monumental work, he quotes a description by Su Che (1039–1112) of Wen Tong (1018–1079), the Northern Song bamboo painter: "He dallies amid bamboo in the morning, stays in the company of bamboo in the evening, drinks and eats amid the bamboo, and rests and
sleeps in the shade of bamboo; having observed all the different aspects of the bamboo, he then exhausts all the bamboo's many transformations."
Accompanying Shitao's signature is his seal, which quotes a saying by Wen Tong: "How can I live one day without this gentleman!"
During the eighteenth,century, Shitao's style of bamboo painting was practiced by members of the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou.
sleeps in the shade of bamboo; having observed all the different aspects of the bamboo, he then exhausts all the bamboo's many transformations."
Accompanying Shitao's signature is his seal, which quotes a saying by Wen Tong: "How can I live one day without this gentleman!"
During the eighteenth,century, Shitao's style of bamboo painting was practiced by members of the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou.
Hermitage in Mount Lu
Artist: Shitao (Zhu Ruoji) (Chinese, 1642–1707)
Period: Qing dynasty (1644–1911)
Culture: China
Medium: Hanging scroll; ink on paper
Dimensions: Image: 37 5/16 x 19 11/16 in. (94.8 x 50 cm) Overall with mounting: 76 1/4 x 26 in. (193.7 x 66 cm) Overall with knobs: 76 1/4 x 29 1/2 in. (193.7 x 74.9 cm)
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Gift of Douglas Dillon, 1980
Accession Number: 1980.426.4
Landscape Painted on the Double Ninth Festival
Artist: Shitao (Zhu Ruoji) (Chinese, 1642–1707)
Period: Qing dynasty (1644–1911)
Date: dated 1705
Culture: China
Medium: Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper
Dimensions: Image: 28 3/16 x 16 5/8 in. (71.6 x 42.2 cm) Overall with mounting: 86 1/8 x 23 in. (218.8 x 58.4 cm) Overall with knobs: 86 1/8 x 26 3/4 in. (218.8 x 67.9 cm)
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Ex coll.: C. C. Wang Family, Edward Elliott Family Collection, Purchase, The Dillon Fund Gift, 1981
Accession Number: 1981.285.13
Shitao painted this landscape for a young friend who visited him on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month—a festival traditionally celebrated by mountain climbing. Suddenly struck by his own old age, Shitao wrote this inscription:
The days when I go climbing are few now and my walking staff no longer helps me. . . . When you were young, I was already in my prime; but suddenly, you are a man and I am old. The passage of time plays tricks on people; like mist or the moon, it cannot be trusted. The future is like a cloud or traces of decaying grass—how can one fathom it?
(trans. Wen Feng)
Shitao's painting is like a fleeting vision glimpsed through fog. As the fog lifts, an approaching skiff heralds the arrival of Shitao's friend, whose coming has the effect of clearing weather on the spirits of the housebound artist. Filling the sky above, Shitao's dedicatory poem is written in a buoyantly rhythmic version of "clerical" script. The monumental characters, engraved on stelae or cliff faces, boldly defy the transient imagery of the landscape and bespeak Shitao's determination to achieve permanence through his art.
The days when I go climbing are few now and my walking staff no longer helps me. . . . When you were young, I was already in my prime; but suddenly, you are a man and I am old. The passage of time plays tricks on people; like mist or the moon, it cannot be trusted. The future is like a cloud or traces of decaying grass—how can one fathom it?
(trans. Wen Feng)
Shitao's painting is like a fleeting vision glimpsed through fog. As the fog lifts, an approaching skiff heralds the arrival of Shitao's friend, whose coming has the effect of clearing weather on the spirits of the housebound artist. Filling the sky above, Shitao's dedicatory poem is written in a buoyantly rhythmic version of "clerical" script. The monumental characters, engraved on stelae or cliff faces, boldly defy the transient imagery of the landscape and bespeak Shitao's determination to achieve permanence through his art.
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