Morning Sun over the Isle of the Immortals

Artist Li Shizhuo (Chinese, ca. 1690 - 1770)

DateQing dynasty (1644-1911)

MediumAlbum leaf; ink and watercolor with silk mount

DimensionsImage: 9 1/2 x 5 3/4 inches (24.13 x 14.61 cm)
Mount: 12 1/4 x 7 1/2 inches (31.12 x 19.05 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: acquired through the generosity of an anonymous donor

Object numberF78-18/4

On View

Not on view

Collections

East Asian Art

Terms

Exhibition History

Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting, Nelson-Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, November 7, 1980 – January 4, 1981; The Cleveland Museum of Art, February 7 – April 5, 1981; The Asia Society, December 3, 1981 – February 28, 1982; Tokyo National Museum, October 4 – November 17, 1982. no. 276.

The Elegant Brush: Chinese Painting under the Qianlong Emperor, 1735-1795, Phoenix Art Museum, August 25-October 6, 1985; Santa Barbara [CA] Museum of Art, February 8-March 23, 1986; Metropolitan Museum of Art, May 13-August 13, 1986; Hong Kong Museum of Art, October 17-November 30, 1986.

Expressions of Brush and Ink: Literati and Chan (Zen) Painting in China and Japan, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, January 13 – August 8, 2010.

Gallery Label

Li Shizhuo was a Manchu official who learned brushwork from celebrated literati artists of his day. His paintings continue the classic landscape traditions, but at the same time, they demonstrate an individual sensibility in the dry brushstrokes that sculpt the boulders and cliffs and the fine lines that describe the curvilinear patterns of clouds and water. In general, his use of color also follows literati tradition, which employed it sparingly, more to add emotional intensity to a scene than to enhance its descriptive purpose. The bold use of flame red in the painting of sunrise, however, is unprecedented and seems to reflect a new interest in representing more realistically the shifting moods of nature.

Provenance

Alexander To;

Purchased from Alexander To by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1978.

Published References

Nelson-Atkins Gallery Bulletin, Vol. V, no. 4, (November 1978), 30.

Wai-Kam Ho, et al., Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting: The Collections of the Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, and The Cleveland Museum of Art. (The Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, c1980), 376-378, no. 276, fig.276D.

Ju-hsi Chou and Claudia Brown, The Elegant Brush: Chinese Painting under the Qianlong Emperor 1735-1795 (Phoenix: Phoenix Art Museum, 1985), cat. No. 31, 100-101.

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 377, fig. 292.

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