Carp and Water Grasses
Oriental art exhibition, Washington University, St. Louis, January 23-March 4, 1966.
Chinese Art Under the Mongols, Yale University Art Gallery, 1968-1969. Traveled to Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Cleveland Museum of Art, October 1-November 24, 1968; Asia House Gallery, New York.
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. 75.
Decoded Messages: The Symbolic Language of Chinese Animal Painting, Cincinnati Art Museum, October 9, 2009- January 3, 2010, no. 78 .
Senses and Sensibilities in Chinese Painting, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, December 14, 2008- February 15, 2009.
In this painting, a carp glides through verdant waters, echoing the Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi’s appreciation of swimming as “the happiness of fish.” Carp can also jump, so those who desired success were likened to carp trying to jump through the Dragon Gate to become dragons. This carp, both a symbol of both contentment and ambition, derives its multifaceted cultural meaning from the natural movements and character of the fish.
Masanari Okazaki;
Purchased from Masanari Okazaki through Laurence Sickman by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1946.
Nihon genzai shina (1938), 53.
Ho Lee, Chinese Art Under the Mongols: Yuan Dynasty (Cleveland Museum, Oct. 1- Nov. 24, 1968), catalog no. 213.
Terukazu Akiyama, Chugoku bijutsu, vol. II, (1972-1973), 245-246, pl. 70.
Chinese Art in Western Collections, vol. 2: painting, (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1973), pl. 70.
Teisuke Toda, Mokkei, Gyokkan (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1973), 133, pl. 93.
Kin-tai no boku-e, vol. 3 (Kodansha, 1975), 133, pl. 93.
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), 94-95, no. 75. (repro.)
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 319.
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), 343, fig. 187.
Hou-mei Sung, Decoded Messages: The Symbolic Language of Chinese Animal Painting (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2009),225-227, No. 78.
