明 鍾禮 觀瀑圖 軸|Li Bai gazing at the waterfall on Mount Lu

Zhong Li

late 15th century · Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk · Asian Art

Nearly three hundred years after the death of the Song academician Ma Yuan (act. ca. 1190–1225), a Ming emperor proudly declared Zhong Li to be Ma Yuan reborn. Indeed, Zhong's works, painted in a typically bold, breezy, almost contemptuous manner, represent the end of the Ma Yuan tradition. Brought to this level of large-scale power, directness, and nearly total absence of subtlety or nuance, the tradition of Ma Yuan perhaps could not evolve further. Zhong Li was among the last great court painters in this lineage. This strongly painted composition, the best known of Zhong Li's signed works, is a classic Ming academic-style picture; it continues Dai Jin's (1388–1462) monumental refiguration of the Southern Song academic manner. The interior dynamics are even more spectacular than in earlier works in the tradition, from the explosive energies of the plunging waterfall and dramatically towering cliff face to the twisted pines coiling out like springs from the stone walls. There is also something quite imperial in the pose of the seated figure on the garden terrace, leaning back like the master of his universe to observe the potent forces of nature as they conduct a special performance for him alone.

Artist

Zhong Li

Date

late 15th century

Medium

Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk

Culture

China

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

From the P. Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Family Collection, Gift of Oscar L. Tang, 1991