董其昌

choi

Christopher Knight, 'Alternative Dreams: 17th Century Chinese Paintings From the Tsao Collection' at LACMA. Los Angeles Times, Aug 31, 2016
http://www.latimes.com/entertain ... snap-htmlstory.html
(This is an art review on exhibition named above at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Aug 7 to Dec 4, 2016.
http://www.lacma.org/art/exhibition/alternative-dreams
)

Note:
(a) " 'The way of painting belongs to the one who believes in having the universe in his own hands,' wrote Dong Qichang four centuries ago, 'and that before his eyes there is nothing but life and the motivating forces for life.'
(i) 董其昌 (1555–1636)
(ii) "畫之道，所謂宇宙在乎手者。眼前無非生機，故其人往往多壽。"  畫禪室隨筆 卷二.
www.geocities.jp/qsshc/cpoem/shulun/huachangshi.html

(b) The collector "is the late Bay Area art dealer Jung Ying Tsao.  Tsao was born in Tianjin, China, and trained as a lawyer in Taiwan after escaping the 1949 Chinese Communist revolution. He assembled what is considered by many to be a premier collection of traditional Chinese painting, a project started in the 1950s and accelerating after his 1963 emigration to the United States.  Following his death in 2011 at 87, a long-term loan of the collection’s 17th century material was arranged by prominent LACMA curator Stephen Little"

曹仲英
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/曹仲英
(1929－2011)
(c) "The show is a demonstration of institutional goodwill in the pursuit of an acquisition; that might sound like a good idea, but rarely does the hoped-for result come to pass. Absent a quid pro quo, vanity exhibitions of private collections attached to names like [Norton] Simon, [Armand] Hammer, [Rosalinde & Arthur] Gilbert [diven to London's Victoria and AlberMuseum], [Nathan] Smooke [collection was auctioned] and [Eli] Broad [to  Michigan State University] have led to disappointment at LACMA over the years. Color me skeptical."

Simon and Hammer built their own museums for their separate collections.
(d) "He split what had come before into two groups.  The Northern School * * * By contrast, the Southern School – which included Dong and his circle"

南北宗
(e) "At LACMA, an extraordinary Dong landscape scroll records a visual journey that starts at the bottom from a humble house and winds through a graceful forest, across a river and up into a rocky mountain fissured with waterfalls. * * * Dong was 73 [in 1627] when he painted this exquisite, 4-foot hanging scroll."
(i) The description sounds like 仿巨然山水. However, I fail to find out who owns it.
(ii) 巨然
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/巨然
(生卒年不详，五代十國南唐画家)

(f) "Round a corner [in the LACMA gallery] and a burst of crimson camellias in the center of a floral scroll by Fang Hengxian 方亨咸 [生卒年不详; 清] is a small, sudden explosion of color in an art elsewhere dominated by shades of black ink. Colorful paintings of flowers and birds gather auspicious symbols for attributes like happiness or longevity. The show’s only women – Ma Shouzhen 马守真 [c 1548–1604] (an eminent courtesan) and Cai Han 蔡含 [1647–1686] – were famous for painting elegant orchids and evergreen pines.

(g) "Most Westerners (including this one) are unlikely to have much acquaintance with standard fixtures in the history of Chinese art – the so-called Nine Friends of Painting 画中九友, for example, a group united more by their mention in a poem [清初吴伟业《画中九友歌》] than by a shared style; or, the Four Wangs (Wang Shimin, Wang Jian, Wang Yuanqi and Wang Hui), who were convinced that they alone were the true guardians of Dong Qichang's legacy."

四王
https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/四王

(h) photo captions:
(i) "Dong Qichang, 'Landscape in the Style of Wang Meng 王蒙 (circa 1308-1385 [元末明初]),' circa 1620s-1630s, ink on paper (LACMA)"
(ii) "Wang Yuanqi 王原祁 [1642年－1715; 清], 'Landscape in the Style of Huang Gongwang 黃公望 [1269-1354],' 1704, ink on paper (LACMA)"