Landscapes after old masters

Yun Xiang

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Hailed as "the foremost painter after Shen Zhou [1427-1509]" by the collector-critic Zhou Lianggong (1612-1672), Yun Xiang was an influential forerunner of such leading early Qing Nanjing painters as Gong Xian (1619-1689). Living in retirement after the Manchu conquest as an yimin, or "leftover subject," of the Ming, Yun Xiang especially admired the dry-brush manner of Ni Zan (1306-1374), the archetypal reclusive scholar-painter of the late Yuan period. Three of the ten paintings in this virtuoso album, in which Yun Xiang interprets a wide range of earlier masters' styles through remarkable variations in brushwork and compositional motifs, were inspired by Ni Zan. The methods of interpretation, bearing the unmistakable influence of the late Ming theorist-painter Dong Qichang (1555-1636), were further developed by Gong Xian and other leading early Qing masters in the late seventeenth century.

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