Landscape after Xia Gui (active ca. 1195–1230), from the Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting

Wang Gai

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In 1679, the playwright, author, and garden designer Li Yu published a primer for amateur painters called the Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting. The manual’s images and texts impart a sense of famous masters’ styles and how to reproduce them. The designs for the prints were prepared by Wang Gai, as he had the versatility required to paint in a range of manners. The manual was extremely successful and became the most widely used book of its type not only in China, but in Japan and Korea as well. Today, many painters still use it as a starting point.

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