Shaded Dwellings among Streams and Mountains

Dong Qichang

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Dong Qichang, the foremost landscape painter and theorist of the early seventeenth century, pursued artistic reform. Reacting against what he perceived as the decadent, perverse trends of contemporary landscape painting, Dong, following in the literati tradition, sought a creative reconstruction of the past through the critical study of ancient styles. In an attempt to restore simplicity and vitality to painting, Dong advocated a spiritual correspondence with the art of the old masters rather than a literal imitation of them and underscored the importance of self-expression. Approaching painting as though it were calligraphy, Dong alternated positive and negative patterns in his landscapes, which resulted in a radical new kinesthetic style. Shaded Dwellings among Streams and Mountains, based on a work by the early master Dong Yuan (act. 930s–60s), is a complex calligraphic study of rock and tree forms conceived as an integration of abstract, cubic, and dynamically expressive masses that embody and are unified by the kinetic energy of the artist's physical movements.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art