Category: Landscapes of Memories

What connects a Chinese poet and an American photographer? Both Bai Juyi’s and Lois Conner’s intention of sharing their unfamiliar art forms with a broad audience integrates the aesthetic world presented in both the poem and the photograph. The platinum print Kunming draws on techniques from Lois Conner’s studies of Ming-dynasty (1368–1644) painting. It emulates a traditional Chinese landscape painting mounted as a handscroll. Although it is not an ink painting, it shares some of its characteristics. Many Chinese ink paintings do not use color; Kunming is similarly monochromatic.

Each individual element in Conner’s composition—the river, village, and willows—requires viewers’ careful inspection, which allows different interpretations. The Tang-dynasty (618–907) poet Bai Juyi’s lyrical poem, Memories of the South, relates the passage of time and his nostalgia for the past. The respective rivers in both artworks represent a connection to the past. Just as a river changes over time, but remains the same river, each season is different, but is the same every year. In these works, while the present merges with the past, the future becomes the present.

Poem selection and label by Ava Busto Schiff ’18

In Ya Ming’s 1980 painting, cliffs rise from churning clouds, pine trees perch on the peak, and a sunrise settles over a sky dotted by distant mountaintops. When paired together, Mount Huang and Wang Wei’s poem invite audiences to quietly enter nature without disturbing the tranquility of the landscape. The poem’s narrator speaks from a mist-shrouded summit “where nobody ever comes,” suggesting a separation from society similar to Ya Ming’s painting. Infused with a lasting sense of seclusion, the two mountain landscapes unify as one through their shared solitude.

Despite centuries of separation between this Tang-dynasty (618–907) poem and the contemporary painting, the sun permeates both works—“low rays” breach Wang Wei’s “dark forest,” while reflections of the sun shower Ya Ming’s cliff sides with warm light. This sunrise mirrors the regeneration of Ya Ming’s own career as head of the Nanjing Art Academy; his interest in traditional landscape painting, a genre deemed feudal during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), led to his initial dismissal. The red-tinted cliffs in his work thus imply a rising sun, a restoration of artistic autonomy after his reinstatement.

Poem selection and label by Erin Sulla ’19

A churning waterfall cascades over cliffs in Wu Yi’s Mountain Landscape, with his dry brush strokes defining flowing water and rough rocks. A void creates an ambiguous “white rainbow” that overshadows two miniature figures standing at the cliffside, engulfed by the expanse.

In Li Bai’s The Cataract of Lu Shan, the narrator climbs a peak to view a similarly “mighty waterfall” mixing with mist as it falls from the heavens, illustrating the insignificance of humans in relation to nature. The poem not only vividly depicts the momentum and beauty of the waterfall, but also captures the poet’s desire to escape from a corrupt society and “leave the world of man forever.” This famous Tang-dynasty (618-907) poet depicted distant, illusory worlds like this landscape to reflect his bold personality. Centuries later, Wu Yi pursued traditional landscape paintings in secret under the artistic restrictions of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). 

Dissatisfied with their current conditions, both poet and painter boldly explore the boundaries of human imagination in their works. The painting captures the essence of the poem and enables the painted figures, the poem’s narrator, and contemporary viewers to immerse themselves in nature and vanish into the “mountains of renown,” separated from society and awed by the power of nature.

Poem selection and label by Ava Busto Schiff ’18, Xiaoqing Luo ’18, and Erin Sulla ’19

On the painting Old Trees and Wintry Crows, the anonymous painter inscribes the name of Wang Hui, an early Qing-dynasty (1644–1911) painter, to show admiration. This also suggests an emulation of Wang’s style—dots and long and short brushstrokes combine to create a dense composition.

Lifeless trees and crows dominate the painting and construct a desolate mood, similar to the scenery in Ma Zhiyuan’s Autumn Thoughts. “People’s homes” suggest comfort, but accentuate the overall desolation. Ma, living in the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), might have used the deserted scene as a metaphor for his country invaded by Mongols. Thus, the homeless and lonely traveler in the poem possibly refers to himself.

Composed hundreds of years earlier, Ma’s poem may have inspired the painter. The painter also witnessed a historical transition and used the desolate painting to depict 19th-century China where rebellions and wars occurred. The vague ink wash under the artist’s seals could suggest the back shadow of a homeless traveler in the poem and also likely refers to the artist who lost a place to stay. Thus, the painting parallels the poem not only visually, but also spiritually.

Poem selection and label by Xiaoqing Luo ’18

Zhao Mengfu’s handscroll Crossing Rivers, Layered Mountains enables viewers to travel across the landscape, with tree-topped rocks and faded mountains rising above the river. Zhao lived through the Mongol invasion and the establishment of the Yuan-dynasty (1271-1368). Despite his Mongol-appointed political post, he searched for meaning from earlier Chinese artists, attempting to reinvigorate tradition. The title thus suggests dynastic transition and tension between cultural traditions and later social unrest. In his painting, fishermen fulfill a restorative role of reconstruction by directly interacting with the natural world, depicting daily life despite disorder.

The poet Du Fu similarly witnessed political upheaval and the gradual decline of the once prosperous Tang dynasty (618-907). Due to the corrupted court, disillusionment sent him into solitude. In The Jiang and Han Rivers, he immerses himself in nature, removed from society. Standing “between heaven and earth,” the narrator is insignificant. The somber atmosphere – the decaying “setting sun” and “autumn wind” – highlights his loneliness, yet by comparing himself to the pure moon and clouds, Du expresses enduring ambition despite his isolation.

The poem’s narrator and painting’s figures thus demonstrate the contrasting yet codependent relationship between humans and nature. These river landscapes capture life’s cyclicity, ensuring us that the world will restore itself after destruction and bloom again – as the narrator states, “I remain ambitious at heart…I will recover,” like the war-torn world around him.

Poem selection and label by Ava Busto Schiff ’18, Xiaoqing Luo ’18, and Erin Sulla ’19