Illustration of Su Shi’s “Second Rhapsody on Red Cliff”

Illustration of Su Shi’s “Second Rhapsody on Red Cliff”

Unidentified artist

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The subject and style of this fan painting exemplify late Yuan scholarly taste. The picture illustrates the celebrated "Second Ode on the Red Cliff" by the Northern Song scholar-artist Su Shi (1036–1101), in which a poet dreams that a crane he saw during an outing was a Daoist immortal in disguise. The rough brush idiom is based on the traditions of Dong Yuan (act. ca. 940–75) and Juran (act. ca. 960–95), but the patterned texture strokes, moss dots, and brisk rhythmic arcs of the water reeds recall the fourteenth-century master Sheng Mou.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Illustration of Su Shi’s “Second Rhapsody on Red Cliff”Illustration of Su Shi’s “Second Rhapsody on Red Cliff”Illustration of Su Shi’s “Second Rhapsody on Red Cliff”Illustration of Su Shi’s “Second Rhapsody on Red Cliff”Illustration of Su Shi’s “Second Rhapsody on Red Cliff”

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.