The North Sea

Original Language Title明周臣北溟圖

Artist Zhou Chen (Chinese, 1460 - 1535)

DateMing dynasty (1368-1644)

MediumHandscroll; ink and watercolor on silk with silk mount

DimensionsImage: 11 1/8 × 53 1/2 inches (28.26 × 135.89 cm)
Mount: 13 1/4 × 192 inches (33.66 × 487.68 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number58-55

On View

Not on view

Collections

East Asian Art

Terms

Exhibition History

Masterpieces of Asian Art in American Collections II, Asia House Gallery, New York, April 16-June 7, 1970.

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. 158.

Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Exploration, National Gallery of Art, October 12, 1991-January 12, 1992.

Chinese Ming Painting, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 5/2-8/29/1993 (Gallery 234)

Ming Paintings through the Eyes of Connoisseurs, Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kansas, January 20 – March 4, 2001.

Senses and Sensibilities in Chinese Painting, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, December 14, 2008- February 15, 2009.

Gallery Label

The title inscribed at the end of the painting, “Picture of the North Sea (or Northern Darkness),” is derived from the classic Daoist book Zhuangzi. It tells the tale of a gigantic fish that transformed into a monstrous bird called Peng. In the story, the sea waves churned, and Peng rose and flew to the Southern Darkness or “Pond of Heaven.” Peng became a metaphor for transformation and achievement, particularly for a man who attains an imperial office position. The man pictured in the pavilion here was likely a candidate for such a position and the original owner of this painting.

Provenance

Kuwana Tetsujo;

Gizan Ueda;

Yamanaka Shoji Co., Ltd.;

Purchased from Yamanaka Shoji Co., Ltd. by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1958.

Published References

A.Conrady, ‘China’, in Pflugk-Harttungs Weltgeschichte, vol. III (Berlin: 1910), 459.

Toyo bijutsu taikan [Masterpieces from the fine arts of the Far East]. Tajima Shiichi, ed. 15 vols., plates ( Tokyo: The Shimbun Shoin, 1908-1918), Vol. X, pl. 54.

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 204.

Ira Moskowitz, ed., Great Drawings of all Time, vol. IV (New York: 1962), pl. 900.

W. Spieser, R. Goepper, and J. Fribourg, Chinese Art, vol. III ( New York, 1964), fig. 65.

Masterpieces of Asian Art in American Collections, II (exhibition catalog, Asia House Gallery) (New York: 1970), pl. 104-107.

Robert J. Maeda, “The ‘Water’ Theme in Chinese Painting”, Artibus Asiae, vol. XXXIII/4 (1972), 262, pls. 181,b.

Terukazu Akiyama, et. Al., ed. Chugoku bijutus [Chinese art in western collections] Kaiga [paintings]: v. I, ed. Kei Suzuki and Terukazu Akiyama, v. II, ed. Kei Suzuki and Teisuke Tosa (Tokyo: 1972), vol. II (1973), 219-220, pl. 11).

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), 64.

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):235-238, fig. 10.

John Hay, Masterpieces of Chinese Art (New York: Graphic Society, Greenwich, Conn., 1974), 13, pl. 38.

James Cahill, Parting at the Shores Chinese Painting of the Early and Middle Ming Dynasty 1368-1580 (New York and Tokyo: 1978), 168,189, pl. 94.

Michael Sullivan, Symbols of Eternity: The Art of Landscape Painting in China (Stanford: 1979), 116-117, fig. 68).

Max Loehr, The Great Painters of China (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1980), 272, fig. 143.

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), 192-193, no. 158.

M. Siggstedt, ‘Zhou Chen’, Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, no. 54 (Stockholm, 1982), pls. 6-9.

Anne De Coursey Clapp, The Painting of T’ang Yin (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1991), Fig. 40.

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), 324, Color plate 67.

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), 359, fig. 234.

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