Approaching Rain in the Summer Mountains in the Style of Mi Yuren
Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting, Nelson-Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, November 7, 1980 – January 4, 1981; The Cleveland Museum of Art, February 11 – March 29, 1918, no. 274.
Flowers to Frost: Four Seasons in East Asian Art, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, July 18, 2015 - July 17, 2016.
After the summer heat, rain is about to pour. Fluid ink dots depict foliage while muted ink washes indicate distant hills and rivers. Fang Shishu inscribes a poem to further express his artistic image of summer:
“Mists and clouds shifting and dissolving in countless layers; In unsurpassed harmonies, Hu’er [Mi Youren, Chinese artist, 1074–1153] is a talent for all time. Who can comprehend those soundless poems? The master’s perfect understanding, that inner lamp, is difficult to transmit."
Yoshizawa Saburo;
With Michelangelo Piacentini (d. 2005), Tokyo, by 1951 [1];
Purchased from Piacentini by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1951.
NOTES:
[1] Piacentini was an Italian art historian based in Tokyo after the Second World War. He studied Italian Renaissance art, while collecting and dealing in Asian objects.
Fang Shishu, Tianyongan biji, preface by Zhao Xun dated 1608, Yishu congbian, vol. 26, ch. Xia, (Taipei: Shijie shuju, 1962-1967), 18.
Harada Bizan [Kinjirō] 原田尾山 [謹次郎], Shina meiga hōkan 支那名畫寶鑒 [The pageant of Chinese painting] (Tōkyō, Japan : The Otsuka-kogeisha, Shōwa 11 1936), pl. 925. (repro.)
Harada Bizan [Kinjirō] 原田尾山 [謹次郎], Nihon genzai Chūgoku meiga mokuroku [Chinese paintings now in Japan] 日本現在中国名畫目錄 (Tōkyō: Ōtsuka Kogeisha, 1938), 318.
Okumura Ikurō 奧村伊九良, Urinasu: Ikurō zasshi 瓜茄: 伊九良雜誌 (Kyoto: 1939), 530. (repro.)
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), 372, no. 274. (repro.)
