Chinese Portrait Painter

Chinese Portrait Painter

Miwa Zaiei

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A Chinese painter dressed in the style of the Tang dynasty (618–907) is painting a small portrait of a beautiful lady who stands in front of him adjusting her hair. The small painting-within-a-painting faithfully replicates the lady's face. The screen painting itself is a testament to the sometimes conflicting ideals held by eighteenth-century Japanese artists. Although nothing is known about the background of the artist, named Miwa Zaiei, except that he lived and worked in the city of Edo, he must have been affected by the concept of Western realism, which had become fashionable in eighteenth-century Japanese art and prompted him to portray the painter in the act of painting his subject in the flesh. Ironically, however, Zaiei still felt compelled to follow the traditional practice of creating an imaginary setting from ancient China for his image of presumably "real" life.

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.