Lucinda J. Francis
September 23, 2008
Met Exhibit – Wang Hui
This review is on the exhibit at the Met entitled Landscapes Clear and Radiant the Art of Wang Hui (1632-1717). To begin the exhibit was divided into different sections which are: Emulating the Ancients, Copying the old masters, streams and mountains without end, and The Great Synthesis. My focus for my review was on the section of emulating the ancients, which basically shows his studies of great masters, and trying to emulate the works that they did and incorporating his own style to what was there. The exhibit itself had also this calming feeling to it because compared to the surrounding exhibits this one was in low light. The setting could also have had some effect to how I interpreted some of the paintings.
There were a couple of paintings there that were of interest to me, especially in the way that they were painted. Most of his paintings showed a feeling of sadness in nature because of the colors that were used to make them, they are in grayscale and had mists and clouds that make everything seem sadder. Even though some were painted in grayscale in a way they still have this feeling of life like if it was done in color. By life I mean that it feels like the paintings are moving and telling you a story about what was happening at the time that it was painted, or even how the artist felt while he was painting it.
Despite how great the grayscale paintings were I preferred the ones that were done in color, and not because they were done in color but because they had a little more emotion to them. There was one in particular entitled “Clearing after snow at Shanyin after Wang Wei” which dated 1671, it was painted on a hand scroll in ink color on silk and it was inscribed by the artist. What I like about this painting is the way the mountains are painted and how there’s movement to them and also movement in the trees. It sort of seems that the mountains are alive like they make shapes while flowing with the wind and I find that interesting. Also the trees have this human like quality to them in a section of the painting it seems like the trees have legs and their moving, like their trying to protect themselves from the a windy wintery day (which has this cartoon quality to it). Wang Hui took something that is obviously stationary and made it move, but only move but flow. I also like the way that it’s painted on a scroll like it can still keep going (I’m so used to seeing paintings in frames and some form of boundary)
Then there is another painting that was of interest to me that is named “Buddhist Temple on a Clear Evening, after Zhao Mengfu” I like it for the reasons that I like the previous one but this one has more shapes and movement to it. Like if you look close you can see that the one of the mountains is shaped like an animal of some kind, like an old tired animal. Like he brought in the painting I talked about previously but instead of a human quality he integrated an animal like quality. It’s funny but the whole landscape to me looks like if it’s sleeping, everything that comes out of this painting emits this sense of a serene and peaceful feeling. It could all also have to do with the subject matter of the painting which is of course Buddhism, which is about being at peace.
Well this exhibit isn’t something that you should walk through because then you won’t get the message or the feelings of the painting. From seeing the paintings of Wang Hui I want to incorporate some of his style to my work, which is to show movement in what I do. Not only have that sense of movement but to incorporate human or animal liked qualities to some of the things that I create without it being so obvious.