Landscape after a poem by Wang Wei

Landscape after a poem by Wang Wei

Tang Di

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Tang Di was one of the first southern scholar-artists to revive the Northern Song landscape traditions of the tenth and eleventh centuries, and this composition is typical of the many large-scale works he produced in emulation of northern prototypes. While Northern Song masters were inclined to depict the dynamic forces of nature through richly descriptive pictorial techniques, Tang reinterpreted the style using more calligraphic conventions. Here, he uses the gnarled trees and desolate lowlands of eleventh-century masters to "illustrate" a couplet by Wang Wei (699–759): I walk to where the water ends And sit and watch as clouds arise.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Landscape after a poem by Wang WeiLandscape after a poem by Wang WeiLandscape after a poem by Wang WeiLandscape after a poem by Wang WeiLandscape after a poem by Wang Wei

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.