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Hanshan and Shide
Hanshan and Shide

Hanshan and Shide

Artist Luo Ping (Chinese, 1733 - 1799)
DateQing dynasty (1644-1911)
MediumHanging scroll; ink and watercolor on paper
DimensionsImage: 31 × 20 3/8 inches (78.74 × 51.75 cm)
Mount: 97 1/2 × 26 1/2 inches (247.65 × 67.31 cm)
Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust
Object number72-5
On View
Not on view
Collections
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. 272.

Chinese Ming Painting, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, May 12 – August 29, 1993. 

Eccentric Visions: The Worlds of Luo Ping (1733-1799), Museum Rietberg (April 12 – July 12, 2009), Metropolitan Museum of Art (October 5, 2009- January 10, 2010), no. 17.

The Sacred Tripod: Buddhism, Confucianism & Daoism in Harmony, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, February 19- August 14, 2011.

The Art of Ink Rubbings: Impressions of Chinese Culture, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, July 20, 2024–February 2, 2025, no cat.

Gallery Label
Luo Ping was famous for paintings of distorted figures with eccentric personalities, exemplified here by this laughing twosome of Hanshan and Shide, whose individual personalities were a great inspiration in Chan (Zen) Buddhism. According to legend, Hanshan, literally “Cold Mountain,” was a recluse and poet who lived on a sacred Buddhist mountain. Shide, literally “Foundling,” was an orphan who grew up in a monastery kitchen and frequently supplied his reclusive friend with leftovers. This inseparable pair became a favorite subject in paintings. Luo Ping created the pair’s mismatched appearance by using undulating brushwork for their rugged clothes and refined outlines for their humorous faces. Such style is characteristic of the Chan painting tradition.
Provenance

Mr. Suhow Hwa;

Purchased from Mr. Suhow Hwa by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1972.

Published References

Shenzhou guo guang ji [Selected works of Chinese art] vol. I (Shanghai: 1908), n.p.

Terukazu Akiyama, et. al., ed.  Chugoku bijutsu [Chinese art in Western collections], Kaiga, ed. By Kei Suzuki and Teisuke Toda, vol. II (Tokyo: 1972-1973), 257, pl.100.

Ross E. Taggart, George L. McKenna, and Marc F. Wilson, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. II, Art of the Orient. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 73.

Marc F. Wilson, “ The Chinese Painter and his Vision”, Apollo, special issue for the Asian art collection in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Vol. XCVII, no. 133 (March 1973):239, fig.14.

Archives of Asian Art, Asia Society, vol. xxvii (New York: 1973-1974), 104, fig. 35.

Howard L. Rogers, Takehiko Fukunaga, Yujiro Nakada and Yoshita Iriya, Kin No [Chin Nung]. Bunjinga suihen [Essence of Chinese and Japanese literati painting] vol. IX (Tokyo: 1976), 88,130, pl. 106.

Carla M. Zainie, “The Eccentric Hermits han-shan and Shih-te: Three Late Paintings in the Nelson Gallery”, Nelson Gallery Bulletin, vol. V, no. 3 (February, 1976), 19, 29-31, fig. 3.

Janet Gaylord Moore, The Eastern Gate (Cleveland: 1979), 37.

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), 370-371, no. 272.

Museum, ed. Tokyo National Museum, no. 379, (Oct. 1982), pl. 11.

Mary H. Fong, “Dehua Figures: A type of Chinese popular Sculpture”, Orientations 21, no. 1 (January 1990), fig. 10.

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), 333.

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. 293.

Kim Karlsoon, Alfreda Murck, Michele Matteini , Eccentric Visions: The Worlds of Luo Ping (1733-1799), Museum Rietberg ( Zurich: Museum Reitberg Zurich, 2009), 174-175, no. 17.



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