Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Ashmolean − Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

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One Thousand-Foot Spring

  • Description

    Qian Songyan was born in Yixing, Jiangsu province. He studied painting and calligraphy at a private school before attending a further education college. He subsequently taught at several schools, but spent most of his career at Wuxi College of Fine Arts in Jiangsu. Qian is known primarily as a traditionalist landscapist under the influence of the Ming and Qing literati painters. In 1960 he became one of the chief figures in the newly founded Jiangsu Chinese Painting Academy. That Autumn, Qian spent three months travelling across six provinces to develop new ways of depicting landscape, together with Fu Baoshi, the head of the Academy, and other Academy artists including Ya Ming, Song Wenzhi and Wei Zixi. Later these artists are known as the ‘Jiangsu group’ for their extensive travels around the country and their subject of nationalistic celebration.

    This painting shows the artist’s well-trained skills of traditional landscape painting. Unlike his other landscape paintings displayed in this exhibition or later reprinted in propaganda posters [see EA2006.21 featured in the partner exhibition Cultural Revolution: State Graphics in China in the 1960s and 1970s], this landscape features waterfalls, rocks, pines and a pavilion, the routine subjects in the tradition of depicting Mount Huang.

  • Details

    Associated place
    Asia China (place of creation)
    AsiaChinaAnhui province Mount Huang (subject)
    Date
    1899 - 1965
    Artist/maker
    Qian Songyan (1899 - 1985) (artist)
    Material and technique
    ink and colour on paper; mounted on layers of paper, framed with ling silk pieces; backed with paper scroll
    Dimensions
    91.44 x 50.8 cm (height x width)
    Material index
    Technique index
    Object type index
    No. of items
    1
    Credit line
    Purchased with the assistance of the Lady Cash Bequest, 1965.
    Accession no.
    EA1965.68
  • Further reading

    Vainker, Shelagh, Chinese Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2000), no. 113 on p. 130, illus. p. 131 fig. 113

Past Exhibition

see (1)

Location

    • currently in research collection

Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.

 

Publications online

  • Chinese Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford by Shelagh Vainker

    Chinese Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

    Qian Songyan was born in Yixing, Jiangsu province. He studied painting and calligraphy at a private school before attending a further education college. He subsequently taught at several schools, but spent most of his career at Wuxi Art College in the same province. He travelled extensively within China and is known primarily as a traditional landscape painter. The scene depicted in Mt. Huang.

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