This publication celebrates the promised gift to The Metropolitan Museum of Art from the Oscar Tang family of twelve major works from the C. C. Wang Family Collection, one of the great private collections of Chinese old master paintings to be assembled in the twentieth century. Ranging in date from the tenth to the early eighteenth century, these works significantly extend the Museum's holdings and reveal those areas of Chinese painting of particular interest to Mr. Wang. An accomplished artist, Ch'i-ch'ien Wang, a resident of New York City since 1949, began collecting paintings in Shanghai more than seventy years ago.Among the twelve paintings presented here is the famed Riverbank, attributed to the tenth-century master Dong Yuan (active 930s-60s), one of the patriarchs of the scholarly Southern school of landscape painting. An essay by Wen C. Fong presents an in-depth stylistic analysis and contextual history of the painting. A physical analysis of the work is also included.An extended essay by Maxwell K. Hearn examines all twelve paintings.

Along the Riverbank Chinese Paintings from the C.C. Wang Family Collection

Arts & Photography

Hearn, Maxwell K.

Fong, Wen C.

History & Criticism

Metropolitan Museum of Art

This catalogue represents an association between The Metropolitan Museum of Art and collectors Marie-HTlFne and Guy Weill. It presents 12 major paintings, including paintings that embody the Ming values, a group by early Quing loyalist and orthodox artists of the 17th and 18th centuries, a rare handscroll composition by the Nanjing painter Liu Yu, a hanging scroll by Anhui school master Dai Benxiao, albums by Anhui painter Mei Quing and the Yangzhou eccentric Li Fangying, and two important modern artists. The accompany text by Hearn (curator, Department of Asian Art at the museum) analyzes each piece to illustrate its significance within its time, place, and the artist's oeuvre. Oversize: 9.25x12.25

Cultivated Landscapes: Reflections of Nature in Chinese Painting with Selections from the Collection of Marie-Helene and Guy Weill

The Chinese often use the expression du hua, “to read a painting,” in connection with their study and appreciation of such works. This volume closely “reads” thirty-six masterpieces of Chinese painting from the encyclopedic collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in order to reveal the major characteristics and themes of this rich pictorial tradition. The book examines multiple layers of meaning―style, technique, symbolism, past traditions, and the artist’s personal circumstances―through accessible texts and numerous large color details. A dynastic chronology, map, and list of further readings supplement the text. 
Spanning a thousand years of Chinese art, these landscapes, flowers, birds, figures, religious subjects, and calligraphies illuminate the main goal of every Chinese artist: to capture not only the outer appearance of a subject but also its inner essence.

How to Read Chinese Paintings (The Metropolitan Museum of Art - How to Read)

China is a vast and populous country, moving rapidly on all fronts to prepare itself for life in the twenty-first century. Heir to a resplendent ancient culture, modern China is following a unique developmental path that evolves from this long and rich cultural tradition. Our understanding of the transformations in China today must be predicated upon an appreciation of this precious cultural legacy.
The challenge for the Metropolitan Museum of Art is to represent this colossal culture by the coherent display of aesthetic masterpieces that recapture the great moments of China's past. Collections such as that at the Metropolitan have grown under generations of collectors, curators, and changing fashions.
The Erickson Collection contains works of outstanding quality that range through different media and across the whole span of ancient China, from the Neolithic to the T'and period. Ernest Erickson, through his collection, has created a vital memorial that fills in gaps in the Museum's existing holdings. We are honored and privileged to help present this wonderful gift, commemorated by this catalogue. (This title was originally published in 1986/87.)

Ancient Chinese Art: The Ernest Erickson Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art

This publication celebrates the promised gift to The Metropolitan Museum of Art from the Oscar Tang family of twelve major works from the C. C. Wang Family Collection, one of the great private collections of Chinese old master paintings to be assembled in the twentieth century. Ranging in date from the tenth to the early eighteenth century, these works significantly extend the Museum's holdings and reveal those areas of Chinese painting of particular interest to Mr. Wang. An accomplished artist, Ch'i-eh'icn Wang, a resident of New York City since 1949, began collecting paintings in Shanghai more than seventy years ago. Works from his collection, long known to Western scholars and connoisseurs, are now in many American public institutions and universities. The Metropolitan owns some sixty works formerly in this collection, the twelve presented here constituting the most recent addition to the Museum's holdings from this source. Along the Riverbank is published on the occasion of the exhibition "The Artist as Collector: Masterpieces of Chinese Paintings from the C. C. Wang Family Collection," which includes most of the works acquired by the Museum from Mr. Wang since 1973.Among the twelve paintings presented here is the famed Riverbank, attributed to the tenth-century master Dong Yuan (active 950s–60s), one of the patriarchs of the scholarly Southern school of landscape painting. It is generally recognized as one of the rare extant paintings marking the inception of the monumental landscape tradition in China. An essay by Wen C. Fong presents an in-depth stylistic analysis and contextual history of the painting. A physical analysis of the work is also included.An extended essay by Maxwell K. Hearn examines all twelve paintings. The major examples of landscape art include Simple Retreat, by the renowned scholar-artist Wang Meng (1308–1385), who drew inspiration from the vision of landscape created bv Dona Yuan and other tenth-century painters. In addition to landscapes, the collection features several important figure paintings, including Palace Banquet, by an unknown Academy painter of the Southern Tang dynasty (967–75) and a long monochrome narrative by Zhao Cangyun, a late-thirteenth-century survivor of the Mongol conquest. The genre of flower-and-bird painting is represented by Mandarin Ducks and Hollyhocks, a pictorial metaphor of marital happiness by the leading early Ming academic master Lii Ji (active late 15th century), and by Two Eagles, a defiant symbol of political resistance by Bada Shanren (1616–1705), a member of the Ming royal house who lived through the occupation of China by the Manchus.(This title was originally published in 1999/2000.)

Along the Riverbank: Chinese Paintings from the C. C. Wang Family Collection

An illuminating investigation into how contemporary Chinese artists have reinterpreted past traditions to forge new artistic paths The Chinese tradition of “ink art” stretches far beyond works in ink, to embrace a set of aesthetic principles centered on renewal and reinterpretation of the past. The 80 works, by 40 contemporary artists, featured in InkArt range from variations on the written word to radical abstractions to contemporary landscapes, and represent media as diverse as photography, video, ceramic, wood, bronze, and stainless steel—as well as traditional ink (which might be on cardboard, polyester, or the human body). They include such iconic pieces as Book from the Sky by Xu Bing and Han Jar Overpainted with Coca ColaLogo by Ai Weiwei, “pseudo-characters” by Gu Wenda, handscrolls by Liu Dan, and videos and animation by Qiu Anxiong and Chen Shaoxiong. The illuminating texts give a history of contemporary Chinese ink painting and how it is perceived in the West. A discussion of the works themselves show how they respond to, subvert, or reinterpret the traditional idioms to define a modern artistic identity that remains both Chinese and global.

Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China

This catalogue presents twelve superb works by leading fifteenth- and sixteenth-century artists of the Wu school, centered in the cosmopolitan city of Suzhou; by the early Qing loyalist, Orthodox school, and individualist painters of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; and by two twentieth-century masters. Richly illustrated and fully documented, each work is analyzed to elucidate its significance within its time, place, and the artist's oeuvre.  [This book was originally published in 2002 and has gone out of print. This edition is a print-on-demand version of the original book.]

Cultivated Landscapes: Chinese Paintings from the Collection of Marie-Hélène and Guy Weill

Wang Hui, the most celebrated painter of late seventeenth-century China, played a key role both in reinvigorating past traditions of landscape painting and in establishing the stylistic foundations for the imperially sponsored art of the Qing court. Drawing upon his protean talent and immense ambition, Wang developed an all-embracing synthesis of historical landscape styles that constituted one of the greatest artistic innovations of late imperial China. This comprehensive study of the painter, the first published in English, features three essays that together consider his life and career, his artistic achievements, and his masterwork—the series of twelve monumental scrolls depicting the Kangxi emperor's Southern Inspection Tour of 1689. The first essay, by Wen C. Fong, closely examines Wang Hui's genius for "repossessing the past," his ability to engage in an inventive dialogue with previous masters and to absorb their stylistic personae while making works that were distinctly his own. Chin-Sung Chang next traces the entire trajectory of Wang's development as an artist, from his precocious youth in the village of Yushan, through growing local and national fame—first as a copyist, then as the creator of groundbreaking panoramic landscapes—to the ultimate confirmation of his stature with the commission to direct the Southern Inspection Tour project. Focusing on this extraordinary eight-year-long effort, Maxwell K. Hearn's essay discusses the contemporary sources for the scrolls, the working methods of Wang and his assistants (comparing drafts with finished versions), and the artistic innovations reflected in these imposing works, the extant examples of which measure more than two feet high and from forty-six to eighty-six feet long. Presented in this volume are twenty-seven of Wang Hui's major paintings, including two of the Southern Inspection Tour scrolls, drawn from The Metropolitan Museum of Art and from museums in Beijing, Taipei, Shanghai, the United States, and Canada. These are supplemented by a wealth of comparative images that range from ancient Chinese paintings and seventeenth-century woodblock maps to works by present-day artists. Invaluable information is provided by the scholarly catalogue, compiled by Shi-yee Liu, Research Associate in the Department of Asian Art at the Metropolitan Museum, which details the inscriptions, colophons, signatures, and seals of each work. [This book was originally published in 2008 and has gone out of print. This edition is a print-on-demand version of the original book.]

Landscapes Clear and Radiant: The Art of Wang Hui (1632–1717)

Chang, Chin-Sung

Arts of the Sung and Yüan includes papers prepared for a six-session international symposium organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in conjunction with the exhibition, Splendors of Imperial China: Treasures from the National Palace Museum, Taipei. Our understanding of the art and culture of the Sung and Yüan dynasties has expanded and changed dramatically since a similar exhibition took place at the Museum in 1961–62, Chinese Art Treasures, consisting of a selection of 231 works also from the National Palace Museum, Taipei. Given the presence of so many rare early masterpieces from these periods in the Arts of the Sung and Yüan exhibition and their formative role in shaping the development of later Chinese culture, the Museum has elected to take this opportunity to reexamine with a fresh eye some of the most familiar monuments. This volume is dedicated to furthering the principle of cross-cultural interchange embodied in the exhibition. Just as the 1961–62 exhibition inspired a whole generation of China scholars in the West, the exhibition offered a fitting occasion for a group of scholars from Asia, Europe, and the United States to participate in the scholarly exchange that such a rare opportunity affords. Only through interactions that remind us of the diverse points of view and modes of understanding that works of art engender across space, time, and cultural heritage, can new perceptions and interpretive structures evolve. [This book was originally published in 1996 and has gone out of print. This edition is a print-on-demand version of the original book.]

Arts of the Sung and Yüan

Smith, Judith G.

Ancient Chinese Art: The Ernest Erickson Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

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