id: 130940 accession number: 1953.629 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1953.629 updated: 2022-02-24 10:00:16.309000 Tall Bamboo and Distant Mountains, after Wang Meng, 1694. Wang Hui (Chinese, 1632-1717). Hanging scroll, ink on paper; overall: 79.3 x 39.5 cm (31 1/4 x 15 9/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund 1953.629 title: Tall Bamboo and Distant Mountains, after Wang Meng title in original language: 仿王蒙修竹遠山圖 series: series in original language: creation date: 1694 creation date earliest: 1694 creation date latest: 1694 current location: creditline: John L. Severance Fund copyright: --- culture: China, Qing dynasty (1644-1911) technique: hanging scroll, ink on paper department: Chinese Art collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll type: Painting find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Wang Hui (Chinese, 1632-1717) - artist --- measurements: Overall: 79.3 x 39.5 cm (31 1/4 x 15 9/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: 昔文湖州有暮靄橫看。宋思陵題識卷首：觀其筆力不在郭煕之下。於樹石間寫叢竹，乃自其肺腑中流出，又不可以筆墨畦徑觀也。 子文廣文出紙求畫修竹遠山。惜乎僕之筆力，不能似郭。又敢彷彿湖州也哉？至若拙朴鄙野，縱意塗抹，聊可以寫一時之趣。姑塞廣文之雅意云。黃鶴山中人王蒙書。 歲次甲戌九月望後三日為冝翁先生臨于長安寓齋。海虞, 王翬。[印]王翬之印; 石谷子. translation: remark: inscription: 3 additional seals: 1 of Pang Yuanji 龐元濟 (1864–1949); 2 unidentified. translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: The Colors of Ink opening date: 1974-01-10T04:00:00 The Colors of Ink. Asia House Galleries (January 10-March 3, 1974); The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (April 9-May 12, 1974). title: Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting opening date: 1981-02-10T05:00:00 Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (November 7, 1980-January 4, 1981); The Cleveland Museum of Art (February 10-March 29, 1981); Tokyo National Museum (October 4-November 17, 1982); The Asia Society Museum, New York, NY (December 3, 1982-February 28, 1983). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * Chinese Landscape Painting. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 5-December 26, 1954). --- PROVENANCE Pang Yuanji 龐元濟 [1864–1949] date: by 1909-? footnotes: citations: (Walter Hochstadter [1914–2007], New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) date: ?–1953 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1953– footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: Wang Hui copied masterworks, even by artists not generally favored at the time, and digested their styles with boundless energy and unceasing virtuosity. He had an ability to assimilate a vast repertoire of sources, styles, and approaches into a “grand synthesis.”

Wang Hui had such enduring affection for a painting by Yuan dynasty master Wang Meng 王蒙 (c. 1308-1385) that between 1686 and 1712, he created several copies with varying levels of engagement and faithfulness to the prototype. Here, his appropriation encompassed not only the pictorial portion but the earlier painting’s inscriptions as well. Wang Meng had written that he was trying to resuscitate the style of an earlier artist, Wen Tong; here Wang Hui sought to revive Wang Meng as well as Wen Tong.

The original painting still exists in the Erickson Collection in Stockholm, Sweden, so the two can be compared, revealing Wang Hui’s transformations. Some of the compositional adjustments may be explained by Wang Hui’s choice of shorter and broader paper than on the prototype. He reversed the Yuan master's composition, shifting the background mountains to the right side and reorganizing the foreground into a broader expanse of space. He also moved the seated scholar out of his pavilion into the center of the landscape by the stream. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Pang, Yuanji 龐元濟. Xu zhai ming hua lu (16 juan) [虛齋名畫錄 (16卷) = Catalogue of paintings in the collection of the author]. Shanghai: Xuantong ji you, 1909. page number: Mentioned: 6a-6b, pp. 19(a)-19(b) url: Pang, Yuanji 龐元濟 and Binglü Pang 龐氷履. Ming bi ji sheng [名筆集勝 = Illustrated catalogue of Chinese paintings in the author's collection]. Shanghai: Mo yuan tang, 1940. page number: Reproduced: III, pl. 11 url: Lee, Sherman E. Chinese Landscape Painting. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1954. page number: cat. no. 84 url: Sirén, Osvald. Chinese Painting: Leading Masters and Principles. New York: Ronald Press, 1956. page number: Mentioned: VII, Lists, 427 url: The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 877 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1958/page/n156 Grousset, René. Chinese Art & Culture. London: A. Deutsch, 1959. page number: Reproduced: pl. 56 url: Sullivan, Michael. An Introduction to Chinese Art. London: Faber and Faber, 1961. page number: Reproduced: p. 193, pl. 135 url: Lee, Sherman E. Chinese Landscape Painting. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1962. page number: p. 98, no. 79 url: Gyllensväd, Bo. "Some Chinese Paintings in the Ernest Erickson Collection." The Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities Bulletin (BMFEA), no. 36 (1964): 159-170. page number: Comparative material. Reproduced: pls. 1-2. Mentioned: pp. 159-161 url: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. page number: Reproduced: p. 269 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1966/page/n293 The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. page number: Reproduced: p. 269 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1969/page/n293 Lee, Sherman Emery, and James Robinson. The Colors of Ink: Chinese Paintings and Related Ceramics from the Cleveland Museum of Art. New York: Asia Society; distributed by New York Graphic Society, 1974. page number: cat. no. 146 url: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. page number: Reproduced: p. 357 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1978/page/n377 Hironobu Kohara 古原宏伸, Tamaki Ogawa 小川環樹, and Roderick Whitfield. Un Juhei, Ō Ki 惲壽平 王翬. Tōkyō: Chūō Kōronsha, 1979. page number: Reproduced: pp. 145 (fig. 26, detail), p. 157 (pl. 26). url: Ho, Wai-kam, Sherman E. Lee, Laurence Sickman, and Marc F. Wilson. Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting: The Collections of the Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1980. page number: Reproduced: cat. no. 245, pp. 331-332 url: Chou, Ju-hsi and Anita Chung. Silent poetry: Chinese paintings from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 408-415 url: Chou, Ju-hsi and Anita Chung. Silent poetry: Chinese paintings from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015. page number: Mentioned: p. 410 url: Giuffrida, Noelle. Separating Sheep from Goats: Sherman E. Lee and Chinese Art Collecting in Postwar America. Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2018. page number: Reproduced: p. 103, fig. 58 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1953.629/1953.629_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1953.629/1953.629_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1953.629/1953.629_full.tif