Riverside Retreat c. 1250

Xia Sen made this ink on silk fan painting, Riverside Retreat, some time during the early part of China's Qing Dynasty. This work evokes the lifestyle of the scholar-official, a class that once dominated the Chinese imperial bureaucracy. We see a lone fisherman on the river, while on the shore, humble dwellings are nestled among trees. The scholar-official would often retire to the countryside, and this image invokes an ideal of simple living in harmony with nature, a Daoist aspiration, that was popular among this elite class. At the same time, it presents the idea of being removed from social responsibility, from the administration of society. To better understand this image, one might research the structure of the Chinese government during the Qing Dynasty, and consider the relationship between the scholar-official class and the imperial court. Images like this helped to establish a social and political ideal, but one that was not necessarily available to all.