Landscape
Xiang Shengmo (Chinese, 1597-1658)
Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
- Medium
- Hanging scroll; ink on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 54.2 × 27 cm (21 5/16 × 10 5/8 in.)
- Culture
- China
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Asia
- Credit line
- Kate S. Buckingham Endowment Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Xiang Shengmo was a grandson of Xiang Yuanbian (1525–90), a distinguished connoisseur and collector of painting and calligraphy. The artist drew upon a wide range of ancient sources for his small-scale landscapes, which are renowned for their meticulous draftsmanship and quiet mood. The lone figure depicted here likely represents a reclusive scholar-official who has withdrawn from society into the solitude of nature—an ideal to which Xiang and other artists aspired. The collapse of the Ming dynasty and the loss of his family’s wealth, however, forced Xiang to sell his paintings for a livelihood rather than continue to paint for his own pleasure.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
