drawing, ink
drawing
ink painting
asian-art
landscape
ink
Bian Wenyu created "Scenic Beauty Along Rivers and Mountains" sometime between 1576 and 1655 with ink on paper. The delicate linework and muted tones recall the literati tradition of painting, emphasizing self-cultivation, poetry and calligraphy, often by scholar-officials who had been sidelined from political life. This painting emerged during the Ming Dynasty, a time of both cultural flourishing and social upheaval in China. The artist probably intended this work for a private audience, rather than the court. The figures are rendered at a very small scale, almost disappearing into the landscape; a subtle commentary perhaps on the relationship between the individual and the vastness of the natural world. We know that artists such as Bian Wenyu referenced the art of the past. To better understand this painting, we might research the dominant aesthetics of the time, study artists with whom Bian Wenyu associated, and learn more about the cultural values that informed his work.
Comments
The inscription suggests that, by aligning oneself with nature, a person could expect to live a quiet life of peace and tranquility, a sought-after goal during the political and social chaos of the early seventeenth century. It reads, in part: Surrounded by ten-thousand miles of water iswhite cloud village, amidst the flowers isbuilt a grass hut;Evening lotus are reflected in clear pools,like-minded friends face one another on verandas…I have a spirit that soars beyond this mundane world,You possess the prescription for immortality.The river-side mountains are green without end,and often seem to float in an endless expanse. On a summer day in the year 1614, I entrusted (my ideas) to the brush at the Northern Suburb Mountain Cottage. —Bian Wenyu
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