Landscape 1634 - 1666

This landscape was painted by Chen Hongshou using ink and color on paper in seventeenth-century China. The fan format itself speaks to the elite culture of the late Ming Dynasty, where such objects were exchanged among scholars and officials, acting as both a practical item and a canvas for artistic expression. This image reflects the artist's engagement with the tumultuous social and political climate of his time. Hongshou lived through the collapse of the Ming Dynasty and the establishment of the Qing, and he retreated from public life as a sign of protest. We see this sentiment echoed in his choice of subject matter - the secluded scholar in his mountain retreat, a symbol of withdrawal from a corrupt world. To fully understand this piece, we turn to historical records, biographies, and collections of poetry and essays. These allow us to reconstruct the intellectual and social networks in which Chen Hongshou operated, and to appreciate how the art of landscape served as a powerful means of expressing personal and political allegiances.