Blossoming Plum

Artist Jin Nong (Chinese, 1687 - 1773)

Date1760

MediumHanging scroll; watercolor and ink on paper

DimensionsImage: 46 1/8 x 24 inches (117.16 x 60.96 cm)
Mount: 7 feet 10 inches x 27 1/2 inches (238.76 x 69.85 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number58-54

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. 270.

Bones of Jade, Soul of Ice: The Flowering Plum in Chinese Art, University Art Museum, Berkeley, California, January 23-March 24, 1985; Yale University Art Gallery, April 18-June 16, 1985; Saint Louis Art Museum, July 12-September 8, 1985.

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

Tides of Chaos, Fervor Within: Chinese Painters of the 17th Century Respond to Dynastic Upheaval, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, September 23, 2004- February 12, 2008.

Cultivating Nature: Printmaking for Painting in 17th Century China, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, August 25, 2010- February 6, 2011.

Gallery Label

Jin Nong, who established his career in an eccentric artistic circle in Yangzhou, is celebrated for his ink plum painting. While average practitioners imitated the classic plum from painting manuals, Jin Nong created his own dynamic style. The boughs in his painting are formed with brushstrokes in light and dark gray tones laid on the rough paper surface. The branches twist away from the frigid snow. The dark strokes from the blunt point of the brush echo his distinctive calligraphy, which was a variant of a style used in ancient stone steles. The energetic image is then softened by the blossoms in ink and light pink.

Provenance

P’an Fei-sheng;

Chen Chi;

Purchased from Chen Chi by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1958.

Published References

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

Tides of Chaos, Fervor Within: Chinese Painters of the 17th Century Respond to Dynastic Upheaval, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, September 23, 2004- February 12, 2008.

Cultivating Nature: Printmaking for Painting in 17th Century China, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, August 25, 2010- February 6, 2011.

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