XIA GUI / 夏圭 (active ca. 1195-1230),
Xiao mountains / 崤山 (1, 903m - 6, 243ft)
China
In Mountain Market, Clearing Mist, Album leaf, ink on silk, The MET
About the painting
According to the MET notice :
"This album leaf presents a poetic evocation of one of the Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers. The Eight Views became a popular subject for painters beginning in the late eleventh century after the Chan (Japanese: Zen) Buddhist monk Huihong (1071–1128) composed eight poems on these themes. His poem Mountain Market, Clear with Rising Mist offers vivid images for painters to interpret:
Last night's rain is letting up, mountain air is heavy,
Steam rising, sun and shadow, shifting light
amid trees;
The silkworm market comes to a close, the crowd
thins out,
Roadside willows by the market bridge: golden
threads play;
Whose house with flower-filled plot is across
the valley?
A smooth-tongued yellow bird calls in spring breeze;
Wine flag in hazy distance-look and you can see:
It's the one west of the road to Zhe Tree Reidge
Valley.
(Alfreda Murck, trans., in Images of the Mind - Princeton: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1984, p. 226)
In Xia Gui's interpretation, boldly executed brushstrokes and ink dots create an abstract language of visual signs rather than merely descriptive forms: the kinesthetic brushstrokes, which change effortlessly from outlines and foliage dots to wedge-shaped modeling strokes and ink wash, at once simplify and unify the landscape and human forms, breathing life into the moisture-drenched landscape. It was this brilliantly simplified idiom of ink wash and ax-cut brush that infused gesture with meaning, preparing the way for the expressive calligraphic revolution of the ensuing Yuan dynasty."
The painter
Xia Gui (Chinese: 夏圭 or 夏珪), courtesy name Yuyu (禹玉), was a Chinese landscape painter of the Song dynasty. Very little is known about his life, and only a few of his works survive, but he is generally considered one of China's greatest artists. He continued the tradition of Li Tang, further simplifying the earlier Song style to achieve a more immediate, striking effect. Together with Ma Yuan, he founded the so-called Ma-Xia (馬夏) school, one of the most important of the period.Although Xia was popular during his lifetime, his reputation suffered after his death, together with that of all Southern Song academy painters. Nevertheless, a few artists, including the Japanese master Sesshū, continued Xia's tradition for hundreds of years, until the early 17th century.
Contemporary accounts describe Xia as a painter who worked very fast, and with great ease. Pure and Remote View of Streams and Mountains is a work on paper, which absorbs ink quickly, and so must be an example of such spontaneous creation. Xia was also praised for his technical skill in drawing architecture and similar objects freehand, rather than using a ruler. Some sources mention the painter's preference for brushes with worn tips, used to avoid excessive smoothness, and "split" brushes, which allowed making two or more strokes at the same time.
The mountain
Mount Xiao or Mount Yao (崤山) is a range of mountains in western Henan, China north of the Luo River and south of Sanmenxia. Major peaks include Qīnggǎngfēng (1, 903m - 6, 243ft) and Guānyúnshān (1,666 m - 5,465 ft). The range is part of the Xiáo historical region on the border of Hénán and Shānxī provinces in China. The area between Yáo and the strategic Hángǔ Pass was called Xiáohán.
