Media Information

 
 
 
Collection:
Museum and the Online Archive of California
Creator Name:
Jen Hsiung (Ren Xiong)
Title:
Pheasants on a Rock
Collection Title Date:
12th century - 20th century
Title Date:
19 century A.D.
Place of Origin/Discovery:
China
Materials:
hanging scroll: ink and color on paper
Dimensions:
h 65 -1/2 x w 18 inches
Current Location:
Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive
Address:
Berkeley, CA 94720
Object ID:
CC.79
Provenance:
On extended loan from the Ching Yüan Chai Collection
Object Type:
Painting
Heading:
Description
Notes:
"This painting is remarkable for the way Jen Hsiung runs together the ink and colors on the birds' plumage without letting them really mix in a messy way. Somehow the pigments are made opaque, mixed with some filler, and kept from flowing together freely. I've asked artists how this is done and gotten various answers; nobody is quite sure. It begins in eighteenth-century Yangchou painting, especially in Li Shan's works, and is taken up by later flower painters, notably Chao Chih-ch'ien. It allows the artist to place areas of heavy color together, contiguously, as couldn't be done before. The effect may be in part inspired by European paintings they saw. Anyway, Jen Hsiung, always an innovator, uses it here for a heavy, somber effect which Tsuruta [Takeyoshi Tsuruta, a noted Japanese authority on nineteenth-century Chinese painting], writing about this and similar paintings, saw as an expression of the dark, somber mood of the mid nineteenth century."
Notes:
Jen Hsiung was the leader of the dominant Shanghai School that arose in the mid-nineteenth-centu ry. From Hsiao-shan, Chechiang he worked for a time in Hangchou living with the collector Chou Hsuen (1820-1875) and copying works from his collection. He later moved to Shanghai where he became established as the first of the four famous Jens. He was an extremely versatile artist, capable of painting figures, landscapes, and bird and flowers with equal skill and creativity.
Notes:
t: Wei-ch'ang
Collection Description:
METS ID:
ark:/13030/kt138n986 m

Pheasants on a Rock