Odes of the State of Bin: The Seventh Month

Fei Qinghu (Fei Zhaoyang)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The album from which these leaves are drawn depicts moments from “The Seventh Month,” a lengthy poem from the Book of Odes about the yearly agricultural cycle. Using the bright blue-green mineral palette associated in Chinese painting with antiquity, the artist created vignettes of labor in tune with the land: the reaping of crops in the summer; the harvesting of ice in the winter; the performance of ritual offerings in the spring. In each of these scenes, small moments of human interaction share the stage with the drama of seasonal change.

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