Lonely Together
ca. 1970
An enormous floating rock is home to a two-story building amidst trees. Two boats are about to meet, as if in mid-air. A prolific, idiosyncratic painter from southern China, Ding Yanyong was known for his quirky and lively style. He was an important advocate of modern Chinese art as an oil painter, seal carver, and art educator. Influenced by Henri Matisse and André Derain, he called himself “Matisse of the East” but later turned exclusively to ink brush painting.
Ding and several of his contemporaries, such as Qi Baishi (see adjacent painting), took inspiration from Bada Shanren (1626–1705), but Ding turned Bada’s psychological drama into whimsy. This work is dedicated to his own disciple and expresses their closeness with a ditty that ends, “The lone skiffs going back and forth are lonely together.”
Ink and color on paper, lacquered wood rod
Overall: 80 x 32 1/4 in. (203.2 x 81.9 cm)
Painting: 36 x 26 1/2 in. (91.4 x 67.3 cm)
Installed: 81 3/8 x 34 3/4 in. (206.69 x 88.25)
Gift of Wylie Wong in memory of Lilly Wong-Lee
2022.5.1
Provenance: The artist; to his student, Huang Dingxian 黃定賢; [Jehu Gallery, San Francisco, California], by 1980; purchased from gallery by Wylie Wong (Wang Shangyi 王商一), San Francisco, California, 1980; to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 2022
