Lotus in Bloom (出水芙蓉图页)
A single lotus flower, painted by an unknown Song hand, does more honest observing in one leaf than most decorative flower pictures manage in a wall.
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Chinese Paintings
The Goddess of the Luo River (顾恺之洛神赋图卷（宋摹）)
The most famous love poem in Chinese literature became the most copied painting in Chinese art. The Goddess of the Luo River, after Gu Kaizhi, is the Palac…
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Lives of Exemplary Women (顾恺之列女仁智图卷（宋摹）)
Gu Kaizhi again, and again through a copy. Lives of Exemplary Women is the companion lesson to his Admonitions, a picture built from biographies of virtuou…
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Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies (顾恺之女史箴图卷（宋摹）)
Gu Kaizhi is the name that opens the history of Chinese figure painting, and this scroll is why. Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies surviv…
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Cloudy Mountains (米友仁云山墨戏图卷)
Mi Youren inherited a way of seeing and made it a method. His handscroll Cloudy Mountains is the ink play that gave Chinese landscape its softest, most atm…
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Snowy River and Returning Boats (赵佶雪江归棹图卷)
Emperor Huizong painted snow the way he painted everything, with absolute control and a faint cold elegance. His handscroll Snowy River and Returning Boats…
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Xiao Yi and the Orchid Pavilion Manuscript (萧翼赚兰亭图卷)
The greatest calligraphy in Chinese history was stolen by a trick, and painters could not resist the scene. Xiao Yi and the Orchid Pavilion Manuscript depi…
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Wang Xizhi Writing on a Fan (梁楷（传）右军书扇图卷)
Liang Kai could draw a crowd in ten strokes, and the tradition calls that a virtue. His attributed scroll Wang Xizhi Writing on a Fan shows the reduced bru…
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Ten Odes (张先十咏图卷)
Zhang Xian was a poet first and a painter second, which is precisely why his scroll Ten Odes is interesting. It illustrates poetry with the restraint of a…
The Spinning Wheel (王居正纺车图卷)
Most Song painting looks up at mountains or studies flowers. Wang Juzheng looked down at a woman at work and made the ordinary feel monumental.
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