Quiet Life in a Wooded Glen 林麓幽居圖

Arts of Asia

Yuan dynasty (1279–1368), dated 1361 元朝

Wang Meng 王蒙
Chinese, c. 1308-1385

This modest cottage nestled at the foot of towering mountains presents a quintessential image of academic retreat from the “dusty” world of material concerns and political instabilities. Its cultured occupant kneels on a platform and plays the zither (qin); a book lies open before him and young servants wait attentively nearby. The luxuriant setting of layered peaks and intertwined trees, as well as the dry, charcoal- like treatment of fibrous and dotted boulders, is imbued with a textural richness. This style is closely associated with Wang Meng, the last of the “Four Great Masters” of the Yuan dynasty.

Such a complex, kinetic composition reflects this artist’s distinctive contribution to the literati’s new use of painting as a vehicle for intellectual and emotional self-expression. This concept was largely kindled by social and political upheavals that accompanied the 14th-century Mongol conquest of China and the establishment of the Yuan dynasty. Wang Meng, who had served the Mongol government as a legal scribe, retired to a mountain hermitage in the turbulent final decades of Yuan rule. He may have executed this painting as a metaphorical self-portrait.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Arts of Asia

Artist: Wang Meng
Title: Quiet Life in a Wooded Glen 林麓幽居圖
Place: China (Artist's nationality)
Date: 1361
Medium: Hanging scroll; ink and light colors on paper
Inscriptions: Inscriptions: 1. in upper right-hand corner of painting: title in seal characters, followed by dated signature of artist in regular script: 林麓幽居, 至正辛丑三月小日王蒙畫 [Quiet Life in a Wooded Glen','Tenth day of the third month ofthe xinchou year of the Zhizheng era (1361), painted by Wang Meng]. Artist's seal: Two red seals following the artist's inscription in the upper-right corner of the painting. Upper seal: 王蒙 "Wang Meng"; lower seal: 叔明 "Shuming" (style-name of Wang Meng). Collector's seals: in the lower right corner of the painting, C.C. Wang 王氏季遷珍藏之印 and Li Kefan 椒堂李可蕃鑑藏, bottom left, unidentified Colophons: 1. on the mounting above the painting: by Wu Hufan (1894-1968), dated 1938: 元王叔明林麓幽居圖勁健暢發在丹青，春曉林泉清集之右, 戊寅吳湖帆題 Followed by studio seal of Wu Hufan: 某景書屋.
Dimensions: 177.8 × 64.2 cm (70 × 25 1/4 in.)
Credit Line: Kate S. Buckingham Endowment Fund
Reference Number: 1947.728
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Charles E. Kelley, “A Chinese Landscape of the Yuan Dynasty,” The Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly April/May 1948, pp. 44-46.
Jack Sewell, Ming-Ch’ing Dynasties [exh. cat.] (AIC,1964), p. (7,8)
Comprehensive Illustrated Catalog of Chinese Paintings: Vol. 1 American and Canadian Collections, compiled by Kei Suzuki , by University of Tokyo Press, 1982; page I-30, No. A 3–005.
Stephen Little,”Early Chinese Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago,” Museum Studies 22:1 (1996), fig. 18.
Stephen Little, “Chinese Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago,” Arts of Asia, May-June, 1999, Fig. 10.

The Art Institute of Chicago : Ming (1368-1644) Ching (1644-1921) dynasties Exhibition 1964

Purchased from C. C. Wang. November 1947, for $12.000. Wang had not yet moved to the U.S.; his address on the invoice is cited as the Hotel Salisbury, 123 W. 57th Street, New York.

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