Landscape, Human Figures, and Flowers
1762
Exploring Hangzhou’s ancient sites and enjoying West Lake’s beauty together, Luo Ping and Xiang Jun made a ten-leaf album. Inspired by the home city of their famous mentor, Jin Nong (1687–1763), the album reflects the energy of new experiences, experimentation, and camaraderie. The artists might have conceived it for Hangzhou’s prominent Liang family, which included a former minister and art patron and his calligrapher son, who wrote the album’s label.
Luo Ping’s refined bamboo, a classical subject, resonates with delicately executed calligraphy for a poem composed by Jin Nong. Xiang Jun’s playful, inky grapevines also flattered the “splashed-ink” repertoire of Jin Nong, whose poem on grapevine-painting is inscribed. The Liang’s sophisticated circle of literary and artistic friends would have appreciated these tributes and the differences between Luo’s and Xiang’s casually elegant combinations of pictures, poems, and calligraphy.
Ink and color on paper
Overall: 13 1/2 x 16 1/2 in. (34.3 x 41.9cm)
Image: 11 7/16 x 13 7/16 in. (29.1 x 34.1cm)
Bonnie and Gaither Kodis, Robert M. Arnold, Jane and David Davis, William H. Gates, Lyn and Gerald Grinstein, Janet Ketcham, C. Calvert Knudsen, Gaye and Jim Pigott, Vinton H. and Amelia J. Sommerville, Susan H. and William P. Vititoe, and Virginia and Bagley Wright
97.83.1.5
Provenance: Nan-ping Wong, Hong Kong; Laura Wang
Photo Credit: Susan Cole
