Page 50 - Chinese Decorative Arts: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 55, no. 1 (Summer, 1997)

Brush Holder
...................................................................................
zhangxihuang (act. early 17th century)
technique are hard to find. Most surviving Pictorial motifs with direct correspondence
Ming dynasty, early 17th century date from the seventeenth to in the ode can be found on this
examples century descriptions
Bamboo
onward. Zhang Xihuang, a bamboo carver brush holder. The gathering takes place in a
H. 51/4 in. (13.3 cm)
from Jiangyin in southern Jiangsu Province, panoramic landscape viewed from an elevated
Purchase, and Mrs.John A. wiley Gft, was credited with producing many works in perspective. In the center of the composition,
Mr
Graham Bennett, this
Seymour Fund, Bequest ofDorothy technique and bringing it to a high artistic in a vast clearing flanked by boulders and
and Erich O. Grunebaum 1994 and technical level. heaps of earth, Ouyang Xiu's banquet takes
Bequest,
1994.208 The relief carving on this brush holder place beside the pavilion. On the right his
depicts the scholars' outing recorded in the friends are playing chess and touhu, an ancient
he continuing development in bamboo famous Ode to the Pavilion the Inebriated game described in the poem. Dwarfed in the
of
carving during the seventeenth century Old Man by Ouyang Xiu (I007-I072). The panoramic landscape, the human figures are
was marked the high achievement of liuqing event took place in I045 in the mountains of represented as diminutive shapes with only
by
a
(reserve-green) technique, type of shallow Chuzhou, in today's eastern Anhui Province, generalized forms.
relief that exploits the contrasting colors and where Ouyang served as a prefectural gover- The other side depicts more visitors men-
textures of the smooth greenish bamboo skin nor. Recently demoted from an influential tioned in Ouyang's poem. The space above is
and the darker, more fibrous inner layer of the position in the imperial court, Ouyang found filled with the entire text of the ode in running
stalk. The design is cut from the lighter skin the scenic mountains of Chuzhou a pleasant script, also carved in the reserve-green style.
is followed
and stands in relief against the ground. By distraction. The pavilion of the story was The inscription by Zhang Xihuang's
varying the amount of skin retained, the artist named by Ouyang Xiu after himself, referring signature and seal. WAS
could achieve an articulated with subtle to the facts that he became intoxicated easily
picture
color gradations. Early instances of the liuqing and was the oldest among his associates.
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