A round ceramic box (that is, a bowl with a fitted lid), decorated with chrysanthemum scrolls drawn in blue outline against a blue background. The blue is cobalt pigment painted before the application of a clear glaze.
Subject Matter
A small ceramic box decorated with chrysanthemum scrolls. Both the chrysanthemum motif and the technique of underglaze blue painting were adopted from Chinese prototypes, but the shape of this box, the tones of the cobalt blue, and the casual free-hand drawing are distintively Vietnamese.
Covered boxes were used as burial objects to accompany the dead. This practice for the care of deceased people in afterlife preceded the succession of foreign religious influence from Buddhism, Hinduism to Islam. The stoneware trade ceramics were also objects of status and wealth, for the local kilns only produced less durable and inexpensive earthernwares. The round shape with a handle, and some of the design motifs were adopted from stone and metal reliquaries and architectural elements came with Indian Hinduism and Buddhism.
Label Copy
March 28, 2009
These covered boxes with blue underglaze painting are examples of the prime wares exported from Vietnam to the Southeast Asian island countries. Although blue-and-white stonewares were first produced exclusively in China, increasing demand from the international market made the Vietnamese kilns highly competitive in the production of less expensive types. Not unlike the international car industry in the modern era, it was common for these kilns to copy their rivals’ popular models and sell them at cheaper prices. Blue-and-white shards of Chinese Ming wares have been found at kiln sites in Vietnam and in Thailand, another major competitor. The covered box with chrysanthemum design shown here is almost an exact copy of a Ming porcelain.
(Label for UMMA South and Southest Asia Gallery Opening Rotation, March 2009)
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
A round ceramic box (that is, a bowl with a fitted lid), decorated with chrysanthemum scrolls drawn in blue outline against a blue background. The blue is cobalt pigment painted before the application of a clear glaze.
Subject Matter
A small ceramic box decorated with chrysanthemum scrolls. Both the chrysanthemum motif and the technique of underglaze blue painting were adopted from Chinese prototypes, but the shape of this box, the tones of the cobalt blue, and the casual free-hand drawing are distintively Vietnamese.
Covered boxes were used as burial objects to accompany the dead. This practice for the care of deceased people in afterlife preceded the succession of foreign religious influence from Buddhism, Hinduism to Islam. The stoneware trade ceramics were also objects of status and wealth, for the local kilns only produced less durable and inexpensive earthernwares. The round shape with a handle, and some of the design motifs were adopted from stone and metal reliquaries and architectural elements came with Indian Hinduism and Buddhism.
Label Copy
March 28, 2009
These covered boxes with blue underglaze painting are examples of the prime wares exported from Vietnam to the Southeast Asian island countries. Although blue-and-white stonewares were first produced exclusively in China, increasing demand from the international market made the Vietnamese kilns highly competitive in the production of less expensive types. Not unlike the international car industry in the modern era, it was common for these kilns to copy their rivals’ popular models and sell them at cheaper prices. Blue-and-white shards of Chinese Ming wares have been found at kiln sites in Vietnam and in Thailand, another major competitor. The covered box with chrysanthemum design shown here is almost an exact copy of a Ming porcelain.
(Label for UMMA South and Southest Asia Gallery Opening Rotation, March 2009)
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
It has a wide mouth and a shape which flared out to a generously-sized shoulder, then tapers to a slim lower body. It is a storage jar inlaid chrysanthemum, cloud and crane design.
Subject Matter
It would be made in 13-14th century judging from the shape and design. It is a little big jar. This kind of jar would be used for putting many kind of food.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
stone ware jar coated with white slip, decorated with a broad band of sgraffiato designs of peony in brown slip
Subject Matter
jar with peony design, peony is associated with the imperial court, with wealth, and with erotic beauty.
Label Copy
While the Japanese favor the cherry blossom, in China the peony is perhaps the most beloved flower. Its deep-colored and many-petaled blooms suggest an almost intoxicating self-indulgence; the flower is associated with the imperial court, with wealth, and with erotic beauty.
Maribeth Graybill, Senior Curator of Asian Art
Exhibited in "Flora and Fauna in Chinese Art," April 6, 2002 - December 1, 2002.
Sgraffiato was a method of decorating pottery in which a surface layer of slip (liquid clay) was scraped or carved away to create a pattern and expose a ground— the clay body or a deeper layer of slip (as is the case here) —of a contrasting color. The vessel was then coated with a colorless glaze and fired. This mode of ceramic decoration developed as an affordable alternative to luxury parcel-gilt silver vessels. The peony flower’s multi-foliate leaf makes a fine foil for the lush, heavy blooms as they scroll across the body of a vessel as seen in this jar.
(Label for UMMA Chinese Gallery Opening Rotation, March 2009)
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
This vertical composition consists of tall, thin trees in the foreground, with a lone boatman floating beneath and behind them. As the scene stretches upwars, mountains take up a dominant position in the picture, stretching toward the sky. Above them is calligraphic text.
Label Copy
Inscription: “Cloudy mountains, misty trees. Shihbiao in the style of Dong Yuan"
Two seals of the artist
Five collectors’ seals
Zha Shibiao was born into a wealthy merchant family in Anhui province. After the Manchus invaded China in 1644, he moved to Yangzhou in order to take care of family affairs and also to enjoy a more cosmopolitan atmosphere. His work, usually sparse in composition, features spontaneous brushwork and abstract forms immersed in wet wash. This painting depicts a river with distant mountains in the background surrounded by white clouds. While the composition is simple, it depicts an immense area. The long hemp texture on the rocks in this painting corresponds with Zha’s claim in his inscription that he executed this work in the style of Dong Yuan (?–962), the great master of the Five Dynasties period (907–960) known for this particular type of brushwork.
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Zha Shibiao was born into a wealthy merchant family in Anhui province. After the Manchus invaded China in 1644, he moved to Yangzhou both to take care of family affairs and to enjoy a more cosmopolitan atmosphere. His usually spare compositions are characterized by spontaneous brushwork and abstract forms created using wet washes. This painting depicts a river and distant mountains surrounded by white clouds. Though the composition is simple, it represents an immense area. The texture strokes on the rocks are in the style of the Five Dynasties period (907–60) artist Dong Yuan (active 930s–60s); Zha’s inscription notes that he executed this work in the great master’s style, an act of homage typical among literati painters.
Gallery Rotation, Spring 2011
Gallery Rotation Spring/Summer 2011
Zha Shibiao
China, 1615–1698
Cloudy Mountains and Misty Trees
Qing Period (1644–1912)
Second half of the 17th century
Handscroll, ink and color on paper
Museum purchase made possible by the Margaret Watson Parker Art Collection Fund, 1975/1.73
Zha Shibiao was born into a wealthy merchant family in Anhui province. After the Manchus invaded China in 1644, he moved to Yangzhou both to take care of family affairs and to enjoy a more cosmopolitan atmosphere. His usually spare compositions are characterized by spontaneous brushwork and abstract forms created using wet washes. This painting depicts a river and distant mountains surrounded by white clouds. Though the composition is simple, it represents an immense area. The texture strokes on the rocks are in the style of the Five Dynasties period (907–60) artist Dong Yuan (active 930s–60s); Zha’s inscription notes that he executed this work in the great master’s style, an act of homage typical among literati painters.
Inscription
Inscription of artist in upper right : Cloudy Mountains, Misty Trees. Shih-piao imitating the style of Tung Yüan (Yün-shan yen-shu. Shih-piao fang Pei-yüan pi). Seals of artist: Shih-piao ssu-yin, Cha Erh-chan. Additional inscription and seals: Chang yin-huan (1837-1900, from Nan-hai, Kuangtung): Seals: T'ieh-hua-lou t'u-shu-chi, Te-fu. Label: Cha Mei-ho fang Pei-yüan Yün-shan yen-shu shen-p'ing. Luan-shuang-lou chen-wan. Te-fu t'i. Seals: Te-fu, Pao-tz'u shu-hua. Unidentified: Tan-yüan chien-shang, Hun-tao-jen kuo-yen.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
A watercolor image of a bridge over a small mountain waterfall. The focal point of the image is the bridge, a bit off-center, that connects two small mountains that split at the point of a river. The waterfall flows down a short ways into a low, wide river. At its bank there is a dark figure, possibly a man standing by the water. Over the bridge in the background are tall and far away mountains covered in trees, they are painted in a way to seem like they are blanketed in fog.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
Born July 10, 1834 in Lowell, Massachusetts, the son of George Washington Whistler, a draftsman and civil engineer. In 1842 the senior Whistler was employed by the Russian government to help build a railroad between St. Petersburg and Moscow. James Whistler thus spent seven years of his youth in Russia (1842-49). In 1851 he entered West Point Academy but was discharged in 1854, for deficiency in chemistry. He worked as a draftsman from 1854 to 1855 in the U. S. Coast Survey, Washington, D.C., where he also learned to etch. In 1855 he left the United States for Paris and, after five years in France, settled in London. He never returned to the United States. He enjoyed great success in his life, as a painter and printmaker, but also struggled for acceptance and endured times of financial hardship.
Whistler studied at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Russia and at West Point Academy, but probably received his earliest artistic training from his father. In 1856 he entered the studio of Marc-Gabriel Charles Gleyre in Paris and became acquainted with Henri Martin, Henri Oulevey, George du Maurier, E. G. Poynter and L. M. Lamont. In 1858 Whistler met Fantin-Latour at the Louvre. Fantin-Latour took him to the Cafe Molière, where he met Legros, Carolus-Duran and Astruc and to the Brasserie Andler, the meeting place of Courbet and his followers. Fantin, Whistler, and Legros formed their own society, the Société des Trois in the same year. Later, in 1865, Albert Moore replaced Legros as the third member of the Société.
Whistler submitted the painting, At the Piano, to the Salon in 1859. Rejected by the Salon, the painting was exhibited in Francois Bonvin's studio. This was also the first painting by Whistler exhibited in Britain, at the Royal Academy, in 1860. Among Whistler's principal patrons early in his career include F. R. Leyland and W. C. Alexander and among major works he produced at this time are portraits of family members of these two men.
In England, Whistler became acquainted with the pre-Raphaelite circle of artists. He began collecting Japanese art and curios in the early 1860s and also is known to have visited the Salon des Refusés in Paris when many of the Impressionist painters were exhibiting there. Whistler's many connections with contemporary artists and wide interests make him an artist difficult to pigeonhole.
Two events in Whistler's life perhaps shed some light on his character: he sued John Ruskin for libel in 1877 (the fees incurred during the case forced him to declare bankruptcy in 1879) and in 1890 he published a book "The Gentle Art of Making Enemies."
Whistler married Beatrix Godwin, widow of E. W. Godwin, in 1888. She preceded him in death in 1896. Whistler died in London on July 17, 1903.
One-man exhibitions: 1874 London, Flemish Gallery; 1904 Memorial exhibition, Boston; 1905 Memorial exhibition, London and Paris
Memberships:
Elected a member of the Royal Society of British Artists, 1884; president, 1886-1888
First president of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters, and Gravers, 1898-1903
Officer of Legion of Honor, France
Member of Société Nationale des Artistes Françaises
Commander of the Order of the Crown of Italy
Chevalier of the Order of St. Michael of Bavaria
Honorary member of Royal Academies of Bavaria, Dresden, and of St. Luke in Rome
Sources: Groce, G. C. and D. H. Wallace, eds. "The New York Historical Society's Dictionary of Artists in America 1564-1860." New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957; MacDonald, M. F. "James McNeill Whistler: Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours." New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995; McNamara, C. and J. Siewert, "Whistler: Prosaic Views, Poetic Vision." London: Thames and Hudson, 1994; Opitz, Glenn B., ed. "Mantle Fielding's Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors and Engravers," 2nd ed. Poughkeepsie: Apollo, 1986; Spencer, R. "Whistler: The Masterworks." London: Studio Editions, 1990.
Two women dressed in dark clothing sit in an interior setting. The nearer woman leans far back in an armchair, head resting on her left hand, legs crossed. The other woman is sitting more upright at the center of the composition. The women look at one another in an attitude of quiet conversation. To the left of the composition is a round table.
Subject Matter
Executed in the year that the Whistlers received the diagnosis of Beatrix's cancer, this work was probaby drawn in the Whistler's home in Paris at 110, rue du Bac. Beatrix, reclining in the armchair exhibits the fatigue that characterized her illness.
Thomas R. Way printed an edition of about 50 impressions; about half of those were signed by the artist. Rosalind Birnie Philip had the stone erased and there were no posthumous impressions taken.
Inscription
Signed with butterfly in pencil, l.l.
Signed with butterfly on the stone, left (above table)
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
A high-angled view of a house with two women sitting on its stoop. In the frame the house has an inverted corner, putting the women in the shadows of the larger portion of the home.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
Eight women appear on a balcony in this drawing with a vaguely indicated crowd looking up at them from below. Most of the women appear at least partly nude, and several wear headdresses and necklaces reminiscent of Egyptian costume.
Subject Matter
In this drawing the famous but controversial British sculptor Sir Jacob Epstein imagines a public spectacle of decadence. He pictures eight women who together project an aura of vigorous but inaccessible and imperious sexuality above a crowd of onlookers. The woman standing at the front of the group grasps the edge of the balcony and gazes upward. Her face is left uncolored, but her eyes are covered with a dark gray wash, giving her a marmoreal and frigid mien. Four of the other women stand rigidly behind her and appear psychologically distant, including the woman looming over the others at the back, whose yellow skin gives her the appearance of a golden idol. Several of the other women are given a more palpable erotic charge: the woman at the right edge of the balcony appears in profile and gazes alluringly downward, while on the left an entirely nude woman erotically engages with a woman wearing a headdress.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
Groups of men gamble, smoke, and drink in a dark guardroom. In the left foreground a seated man wearing a red sash lights his white clay pipe, while his companion pauses his smoking to listen to a man standing next to him. The red of the smoker's sash is repeated in the flag and fabrics strewn about in the right foreground, which form part of a still-life of weapons, musical instruments, and glinting armor heaped together against the wall. Between these brightly lit foreground vignettes the scene recedes into the darkened interior where a group of five men gather about a table to gamble.
Subject Matter
This painting depicts with striking realism an imagined scene of civic guards at leisure. The realistic impression made by the painting depends in part upon the painstaking rendition of objects and details throughout the room: the ceramic jugs, a wooden table, a piece of crumpled paper, the dull glint of a lantern near the ceiling, and the tour-de-force still-life of military equipment all contribute to the painting's seeming veracity. The fact that the men are engaged in everyday activities of smoking, drinking, gambling and conversing contributes to the impression that we are looking upon an actual scene that Teniers simply transcribed with his brush.
Label Copy
March 28 2009
David Teniers the Younger enjoyed great fame and prosperity during his career, becoming a court painter at the Spanish Habsburg court in Brussels and eventually achieving noble status in 1663—a comment on the rising social status of artists. In this painting from his earlier years, Teniers portrays with striking realism an imagined scene of soldiers at leisure, smoking, drinking, and gambling while their equipment lies piled to one side. Guardroom scenes depicting the barren and tedious everyday life of soldiers became an established genre among Dutch painters by the 1620s, a reflection of the warfare that raged between Flanders, ruled by the Habsburg emperors, and the Netherlands to the north, which fought to free itself from imperial control. Although Teniers worked in the Flemish city of Antwerp, this painting reveals the influence that Dutch artists exercised over Teniers and his clientele.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
Abstract shape rendered in Styrofoam that has been covered with modeling compound. Base with four columns, three of which have “pop dots” attached to them. Partially painted a bright minty green, which gets darker in the “back” of the sculpture (the side that doesn’t have dots).
Subject Matter
The artist describes her work as “a hybridization of painting and sculpture…. The sources of imagery have developed from purely formal abstraction to investigations of Indian and subsequently Pre-Columbian sources. The work melds painting and sculptural form sometimes enhancing the three dimensional and other times obscuring it.” (artist’s statement, http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/yourgallery/artist_profile/Jill+Levine/44692.html) This work is an example of “purely formal abstraction,” although its shape and bright color are reminiscent of sea coral.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
Landscape of flat terrain; water, perhaps a small stream, in the foreground; four leafless trees (two large, two small) right of center, and two leafless trees left of center, below a cloud-filled sky.
Subject Matter
Painted in overall tones of blues, greens and grays, this landscape represents the growing nostalgia for untamed, natural land, which many 19th century American artists, like Murphy, were feeling during a time when the Industrial Revolution brought about the clearing of enormous areas of land.
Label Copy
March 28 2009
Neglected or untouched landscapes were appealing subjects for many American artists in the decades following the Civil War; during this time the United States was quickly transforming from a rural to an urban society, and there was an increasing nostalgia for places untouched by man. Murphy, like other Tonalist painters, rejected the precisely executed and expansive panoramic vistas of the earlier Hudson River school artists. Instead he offered the viewer a close, intimate view of nature that invites contemplative reflection. Murphy was a keen observer of the wilderness, as the meticulously crafted Landscape with its flat terrain and spindly trees attests. The scuffed brushstrokes convey the rugged texture of the marshy landscape, while the muted tonalities of blue and grey evoke the fresh, crisp air. Murphy often returned to the same subjects, even repeating the same compositional formats. Unlike his fellow American landscape painters, such as Frederic Edwin Church and George Inness, he was not an avid traveler; most of his landscapes are based on views of the Catskill Mountains accessible from his home in Arktown, New York.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
34.5 cm x 34.5 cm x 2.5 cm (13 9/16 in. x 13 9/16 in. x 1 in.)
Physical Description
This ink and chalk drawing has a laying lamb in left foreground, a human figure behind it with two cows on either side, a statue in center with cattle to the right, and a large, split tree in background with mountains behind it.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
From a portfolio of ten screenprints based on a publicity still of Marilyn Monroe from the 1953 film "Niagara".
Label Copy
6/28/10
Andy Warhol (United States, 1928–1987)
Marilyn
1967
Screenprint on paper
Gift of Frances and Sydney Lewis
By the time of her suicide in 1962, few figures played as visible a role in the public imagination as Marilyn Monroe. Like Jacqueline Kennedy, another of Warhol's subjects of the 1960s, Marilyn Monroe combined beauty, fame, and tragedy in equal measure.
Shortly after her death, Warhol began an extensive series of works based on a publicity still for the 1953 film Niagara. In 1967, he produced a portfolio of ten portraits, three of which are displayed here. The commercial technique of screenprinting simultaneously provides the image with a clean, hard-edged legibility and allows for endless variation in color and registration. In these works, Marilyn is both canonized as a martyr and exposed as a highly structured image. By celebrating the veneer of glamour and fame while at the same time acknowledging its complexity (and morbidity), these prints reveal Warhol's subtle grasp of American celebrity culture.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
From a portfolio of ten screenprints based on a publicity still of Marilyn Monroe from the 1953 film "Niagara".
Label Copy
Disaster and glamour are twin themes in Andy Warhol's work of the 1960s. Fascinated by movie stars such as Warren Beatty, Troy Donahue, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and Elizabeth Taylor, Warhol was also drawn to subjects involving death and disaster, such as air and automobile crashes, the electric chair, and suicides. Like Jacqueline Kennedy, another of Warhol's subjects of the 1960s, Marilyn Monroe combined beauty, fame, and tragedy in equal measure.
This print follows Warhol's first paintings depicting Marilyn Monroe, exhibited in November 1962. This image was created by the use of the silkscreen, a favorite technique of Warhol's, whose process eliminated brushwork found in painting and precludes any sense of the artist's touch. On the other hand, the off-register printing, a characteristic of both the paintings and the prints, reintroduces the sense of individual production rather than mass manufacture. The brash color combinations help to underscore the vitality of the image, suggesting the flickering of some old movie. The glamour of the silver screen is an appropriate setting for this representation of a sex symbol of the movie industry.
For Warhol, however, Marilyn Monroe was more than a product of the motion picture industry. She was also the product of urban mass culture, which in turn is influenced by symbols and images communicated by the mass media. Warhol's use of these popular icons of the day helped coin the term for the movement he is credited with founding: Pop Art.
Sean M. Ulmer, University Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, for "A Matter of Degree: Abstraction in Twentieth-Century Art," November 10, 2001 - January 27, 2002
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6/28/10
Andy Warhol (United States, 1928–1987)
Marilyn
1967
Screenprint on paper
Gift of Frances and Sydney Lewis
By the time of her suicide in 1962, few figures played as visible a role in the public imagination as Marilyn Monroe. Like Jacqueline Kennedy, another of Warhol's subjects of the 1960s, Marilyn Monroe combined beauty, fame, and tragedy in equal measure.
Shortly after her death, Warhol began an extensive series of works based on a publicity still for the 1953 film Niagara. In 1967, he produced a portfolio of ten portraits, three of which are displayed here. The commercial technique of screenprinting simultaneously provides the image with a clean, hard-edged legibility and allows for endless variation in color and registration. In these works, Marilyn is both canonized as a martyr and exposed as a highly structured image. By celebrating the veneer of glamour and fame while at the same time acknowledging its complexity (and morbidity), these prints reveal Warhol's subtle grasp of American celebrity culture.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
This painting depicts a solitary bird perched on a tropical banana plant.
Subject Matter
In 1922, a friend persuaded Baishi to submit paintings to a Sino-Japanese art exhibition in Japan. It was a spectacular success: his paintings sold for far higher prices than he had been earning in China and several were chosen for an exhibition in Paris, which led to international fame. The Japanese remained some of Baishi’s most eager customers, although he increasingly refused their requests after Japanese incursions into China in the early 1930s.
However, this painting was a gift for the artist's Japanese friend. The artist inscription indicates that it was a farewell gift for his Japanese friend Katsuizumi Sotokichi when he left Beijing for a more southerly post.
It perhaps anticipates that Katsuizumi would be lonely in his new environment. Made in probably the 1920s, it quietly bears witness to an earlier and more congenial phase in Chinese-Japanese relations.
Label Copy
In 1922, a friend persuaded Baishi to submit paintings to a Sino-Japanese art exhibition in Japan. It was a spectacular success: his paintings sold out at far higher prices than he had been earning in China, and several were chosen for an international exhibition in Paris, which led to international fame. The Japanese remained among Baishi’s most eager customers, although Baishi increasingly refused their requests after Japanese incursions into China in the early 1930s.
This painting quietly bears witness to an earlier and more congenial phase in Chinese-Japanese relations. Baishi’s inscription indicates that it was a farewell gift for the Japanese (-American?) Katsuizumi Sotokichi, when Katsuizumi left Beijing for a more southerly post. Perhaps anticipating that his friend will be lonely in his new environment, he depicts a solitary bird perched on a tropical banana plant.
Maribeth Graybill, Senior Curator of Asian Art
Exhibited in "Flora and Fauna in Chinese Art," April 6, 2002 - December 1, 2002.
Gallery Rotation Fall 2011
Qi Baishi
China, 1864–1957
Solitary Bird Perched on a Banana Plant
Modern Period (1912–present)
ca. 1920s
Hanging scroll, ink on paper
Gift of Katsuizumi Sotokichi, 1949/1.196
In 1922, a friend persuaded Baishi to submit paintings to a Sino-Japanese art exhibition in Japan. It was a spectacular success: his paintings sold for far higher prices than he had been earning in China and several were chosen for an exhibition in Paris, which led to international fame. The Japanese remained some of Baishi’s most eager customers, although he increasingly refused their requests for paintings after Japanese incursions into China in the early 1930s.
This painting quietly bears witness to an earlier and more congenial phase in Chinese-Japanese relations. Baishi’s inscription indicates that it was a farewell gift for his Japanese friend Katsuizumi Sotokichi when he left Beijing for a more southerly post. Perhaps anticipating that Katsuizumi would be lonely in his new environment, Baishi depicts a solitary bird perched on a tropical banana plant.
Inscription
Inscription and signature of the artist: "A farewell gift for Mr. Katsuizumi, as he goes south. Baishi."
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
Kimono with overall green color and black floral designs in background. Foreground is a larger version of the black floral pattern in white with yellow centers.
Subject Matter
Komon kimono with floral design for casual occasions.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
