Page 441 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

requested an Enjoying Antiquities picture
together with an inscription. I seem to have Du Jin was born in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province, in 1499, the master was not only old but poor,
sought for something beyond the forms, and but was a registered resident of Beijing during suggesting that the taste for Du's elegant and
that concept is manifested apart from my most of his adult life. During the Chenghua reign highly skilled renditions of classical subjects was
words. Viewers can judge for themselves. (1464-1487), after pursuing a course of classical being eroded, especially in the north, by the far
studies, Du sat for the highest-level examination more forceful styles of Wu Wei and Wang Zhao.
Unusual in both size and shape, the original in the capital; failing to place, he gave up the idea The calligraphic scribbling of rock textures in one
format of Enjoying Antiquities was undoubtedly of an official career and turned to writing and of Du's latest extant paintings suggests that Du
a fixed-frame screen of the type portrayed in the painting. Du's prose was characterized as strange himself perceived a limited future for the harmo-
painting itself at upper right. The illusionistic and antique, his poetry as elegant and assured, but nious restraint exemplified so beautifully in
device of portraying another painting within a it was as a painter that Du made a lasting mark. Enjoying Antiquities. H.R.
painted screen —so-called double-screen pic- The painter and art collector Zhan Jingfeng (1520-
tures—seems to have been popularized in the 1602) ranked him as the foremost figure painter
tenth century by such artists as Zhou Wenju. of the Ming dynasty, and Du's influence can be
Paintings-within-paintings also appear in Gu seen in the work of both Qiu Ying (cat. 301) and 294
Hongzhong's (act. 943-960) Night Revels of Han Tang Yin (cat. 297). In fact, according to Zhan Dujin
Xizai, a scroll known to have been copied by the Jingfeng, Tang based his own copy of the Night
present artist and one which provides clear Revels scroll on Du's version rather than on the active c. 1465-c. 1500
precedent for the diagonal placement of the uten- original painting. ON VIEWING A PAINTING
sil-laden table seen here. Thus, in its original Du Jin must have been very close in age to OF THE PEACH-BLOSSOM SPRING
format, Enjoying Antiquities not only engaged Shen Zhou (cat. 311-315), who wrote to his friend
the eye and protected the body from winds and (addressing Du by his earlier surname, Lu): Chinese
drafts but also carried historical and stylistic con- "... I would like to keep you here through the section of a handscroll; ink on paper
5
notations that would have served to validate the winter; in a deep bamboo grove by the clear river 28 x 108.2 (11 x 42 /s)
high cultural status of its owner. is a rustic hut/' When Tang Yin met Du in Beijing Palace Museum, Beijing

440 CIRCA 1492