Single page of the portrait of Fuxi and Nuwa from the Tang Dynasty

This album leaf is a ink, the Chinese picture made to be unrolled or unpinned a section at a time rather than seen all at once. the Tang painter’s hand that made it assumed a viewer in motion.

A handscroll rewards the journey; The subject is the excuse. What the Tang dynasty (618-907 CE) painter sold was a way of looking, disciplined and unhurried.

Tang manufacture met the Silk Road head-on, absorbing foreign forms and motifs into a cosmopolitan court aesthetic.

A album leaf like this was made to be handed on, not framed forever. The ink still asks you to slow down, which is the whole point.

Image © The Palace Museum. View the original in the Palace Museum Digital Collection.