Page 469 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

the pictorial stage, and in the diagonal recession,
diminution in scale, and increasing atmospheric
haziness that together suggest recession of the
ground plane. Old Shen still had his eyes open to
reality as well as to pictorial tradition.
Leaf 2 is a most unusual and bold composition,
with its enormous, nearly central crag —a "stone
ledge flying in space" — dominating both the
solitary figure and the screen of trees and rocks to
the right. The conceit of showing the figure (Shen
himself?) looking at his poem hanging in the
space between ledge and distant hills is a wonder-
ful example of the unity of word and image in the
best wen ren painting.
Leaf 3 is likewise a modified "one-cornered"
composition, with the trees in the lower right
foreground balanced by distant hills at upper left.
The crisp clarity of ink and color convey the feel
of a brisk fall day ("white clouds and red leaves").
On leaf 4 the poem refers even more specifically
to autumn, while the image suggests a wind that
not only fills the boats' sails but even seems to
make the exaggerated ledge to lean in the same
direction. Leaf 5 recalls the undramatic, even,
"bland" look of Night Vigil (cat. 313) of 1492; its
poem seems unfocused and only partly related to
the image. The travelers do not "look back"; there
is no "carriage wheel" in sight.
The sixth leaf, the only one remaining of the
four painted by Wen Zhengming at Wu Kuan's
request, must be a very early work by the artist —
Edwards suggests a date before 1504, the date of
Wu Kuan's death, when Wen was thirty-seven, a
mere youth by Chinese scholars' standards. He
refers to himself as "pupil" to Shen Zhou, and
Storm over the River, though rendered in his
more elegant and more miniature brushwork,
clearly shows his debt to the older master. A com-
parison of leaf 6 with leaf 4 by Shen is instructive
in this regard.
Of the following signatures and seals, poems,
and colophons, those on leaves 1-5 are by
Shen Zhou, leaf 6 and the colophon are by
Wen Zhengming:
Leafi: Signed Shen Zhou; Seals: Qi'nan,
Shi Tian
Leaf 2:
White clouds like a belt
encircle the mountain's waist
A stone ledge flying in space
and the far thin road.
I lean alone on my bramble staff
and gazing contented into space
Wish the sounding torrent
would answer to your flute.

Signed Shen Zhou. Seals: (below signature)
Qi'nan; (lower right) Boshi Weng

Leaf 3:
Carrying a crane and my [qin]
homeward bound on the lake
468 CIRCA 1492