Li Gonglin’s The Classic of Filial Piety: A Masterpiece of Song Dynasty Handscroll Painting

Song scholar-artists believed that painting was not just a record of sensory experience but also a reflection of the artist’s mind, a revelation of his personality, and an expression of deeply held values. In giving form to this ideal, Li Gonglin fundamentally transformed Chinese art. Prior to Li’s time, painting served a public function: it […]

Grooms and Horses

In the early Yuan period, when the ruling Mongols curtailed the employment of Chinese scholar-officials, the theme of the groom and horse—one associated with the legendary figure of Bole, whose ability to judge horses had become a metaphor for the recruitment of able government officials—became a symbolic plea for the proper use of scholarly talent. […]

Palace Banquet

This large painting is one of the earliest surviving examples of the “ruled-line” (jiehua) genre of architectural renderings. It offers an intimate view of the women’s quarters of a palace where elegant rooms face onto private courtyards graced with trees and blossoming lotus, an indication of the summer season. Activity centers around a second-story terrace […]

Han Gan, Night-Shining White

Tethered to a wooden stake, the horse in this painting appears wild-eyed and animated, its head raised with flaring nostrils and an open mouth as if it is emitting a shrill neigh. A leading court painter named Han Gan who specialized in horses is believed to have painted this portrait of “Night-Shining White,” the favored […]

Portrait of the Imperial Guard Zhan Yinbao

Under the Manchu emperors of the Qing dynasty, portraiture again became an important court-sponsored art. This full-length depiction of an imperial bodyguard of the first rank is from a set of one hundred portraits of loyal officials and valiant warriors commissioned by the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736–95) that originally hung in the Hall of Imperial […]

Giuseppe Castiglione’s One Hundred Horses in Motions

During the eighteenth century, the Manchu Qing dynasty sponsored a major revival of courtly arts, which attained a new monumental scale, technical finish, and descriptive intricacy. A key figure in establishing this new court aesthetic was the Italian Jesuit Giuseppe Castiglione. A master of vividly naturalistic draftsmanship and large-scale compositions, in Europe he worked as […]

Chinese Painting

By Maxwell Hearn The Chinese way of appreciating a painting is often expressed by the words du hua, “to read a painting.” How does one do that? Consider Night-Shining White by Han Gan (1977.78), an image of a horse. Originally little more than a foot square, it is now mounted as a handscroll that is […]

Show and Tell: Exploring Storytelling in Chinese Painting

By Shi-yee Liu «The genre of narrative painting in China reached full maturity as early as the fourth century and continues to thrive today. The exhibition Show and Tell: Stories in Chinese Painting—on view at The Met Fifth Avenue through August 6, 2017—explores how Chinese painters have told stories that promote political and cultural agendas […]

Chinese Painting, Appreciation of This Art

By Maxwell Hearn Department of Asian Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Chinese way of appreciating a painting is often expressed by the words du hua, “to read a painting.” How does one do that? Consider Night-Shining White by Han Gan (1977.78), an image of a horse. Originally little more than a foot square, […]