Currently not on view
An Ancient House under Tall Pine Trees (Chang song lao wu tu 長松老屋圖),
ca. 1700
Shitao 石濤, 1642–1707; born Guilin, China; died Yangzhou, China
Chinese
Qing dynasty, 1644–1912
y1984-48
Shitao was among the most famous of the individualist painters of the early Qing dynasty. In this landscape, he treated painting like calligraphy, rearranging familiar motifs in new ways and “writing” strange-looking rock and tree forms in an expressive play of brush and ink. His inscription, which also appears on an earlier painting dated 1679, reads:
An angry lion tearing at a rock,
A thirsty steed galloping to a spring,
Wind and rain gathering,
Mist and clouds in myriad shapes,
Sublime and unworldly,
Calm, steady, and straightforward.
I apply these feelings with my brush and ink,
But express myself beyond brush and ink.
Will not the connoisseur upon seeing this die of laughter?
Translated by Wen C. Fong
More About This Object
Information
Title
An Ancient House under Tall Pine Trees (Chang song lao wu tu 長松老屋圖)
Dates
ca. 1700
Maker
Medium
Hanging scroll; ink on paper
Dimensions
Painting: 184.8 x 88.3 cm. (72 3/4 x 34 3/4 in.)
Mount: 268 x 94.4 cm. (105 1/2 x 37 3/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of John B. Elliott, Class of 1951
Object Number
y1984-48
Place Made
Asia, China
Signatures
signed
Marks/Labels/Seals
Seventeen characters in ink on label adhered to edge of rolled scroll
Culture
Period
Subject
- Wen C. Fong, Images of the mind: selections from the Edward L. Elliott family and John B. Elliott collections of Chinese calligraphy and painting at the Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1984)., cat. no. 6
- "Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1984," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 44, no. 1 (1985): p. 24-52., p. 40
