Quatrain on spring’s radiance

Quatrain on spring’s radiance

Empress Yang Meizi

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

During the Southern Song, artists and connoisseurs who wished to express their emotional responses to paintings frequently added poems to them. Empress Yang's poems appear on a number of paintings by such court artists as Ma Yuan (active ca. 1190–1225) and Ma Lin (active ca. 1180–after 1256); this quatrain must once have complemented a fan painting of flowers, but it reveals more about the state of mind of the empress than about the lost painting it accompanied: My makeup worn and faded, only the scent lingers; Still I shall enjoy spring's beauty before my eyes. Once you said to me, how a year blooms quickly and as quickly dies! Might we now forsake worldly splendors for the land of wine?

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.