The Metropolitan Museum of Art opens 'The Landscape Art of Wang Hui'

Tuesday, 09 September 2008 17:40

 

NEW YORK CITY - Wang Hui, the most celebrated painter of late 17th-century China, played a key role in reinvigorating past traditions of landscape painting as well as in establishing the stylistic foundations for the imperially sponsored art of the Manchu Qing court. An artist of protean talent and immense artistic ambition, Wang developed an all-embracing synthesis of historical landscape styles that constituted one of the greatest innovations in the arts of late imperial China. On exhibition 9 September through 4 January, 2009, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The exhibition features 27 masterpieces by Wang Hui from the Taipei and Beijing Palace Museums, the Shanghai Museum, and several North American collections, including five outstanding works from the Metropolitan's permanent collection. These 27 paintings are complemented by a selection of earlier landscapes from the Song (960–1279), Yuan (1279–1368), and Ming (1368–1644) dynasties, mostly drawn from the Museum’s holdings, that highlight the sources of Wang Hui’s inspiration. 

The catalogue is made possible by the Joseph Hotung Fund and The Dillon Fund. The exhibition is made possible by The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Foundation.

The Met's Asian department holds a collection of Asian art that is arguably the most comprehensive in the West. The collection dates back almost to the founding of the museum: many of the philanthropists who made the earliest gifts to the museum included Asian art in their collections. Today, an entire wing of the museum is dedicated to the Asian collection, which contains more than 60,000 pieces and spans 4,000 years of Asian art. Every Asian civilization is represented in the Met's Asian department, and the pieces on display include every type of decorative art, from painting and printmaking to sculpture and metalworking. The department is well-known for its comprehensive collection of Chinese calligraphy and painting, as well as for its Nepalese and Tibetan works. However, not only "art" and ritual objects are represented in the collection; many of the best-known pieces are functional objects. The Asian wing even contains a complete Ming Dynasty garden court, modeled on a courtyard in the Garden of the Master of the Fishing Nets in Suzhou.

Visit The Metropolitan Museum of Art at : www.metmuseum.org/

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