Hongren 1610-1663

signed Jianjiang xueren ('the Scholar of Jianjiang'), inscribed 'in imitation of the brush-idea of Lu Tianyou (Lu Guang, c. 1300-after 1371),' dated wuxu (1658) fourth month, and with two seals of the artist, hong ren, jian jiang.

Fantastics and Eccentrics in Chinese Painting, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, June 20 to August 13, 1967; San Francisco, M. H. De Young Memorial Museum, September 15 to November 5, 1967
Chinese Paintings from the Ching-Yuan Chai: the Cahill Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Chinese Paintings of the Qing Dynasty, April 22 to June 2, 1974
Shadows of Mt. Huang: Chinese Painting and Printing of the Anhui School, Berkeley, University Art Museum, January 21 to March 22, 1981;The Detroit Institute of Arts, July 12 to 13, 1981;
Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery, The University of Texas at Austin, October to November 22, 1981; Princeton University, The Art Museum, December 12, 1981 to January 23, 1982
The Single Brushstroke: 600 Years of Chinese Painting from the Ching Yuan Chai Collection, Vancouver Art Gallery, March 15 to May 26, 1985
Mists and Clouds: Masterworks of Chinese Painting, Berkeley, University Art Museum, March 2002; University of Michigan Museum of Art, 2002-2003; University of Wisconsin, Elvehjem Museum, 2004; West Palm Beach, Norton Museum of Art, 2004-2005; Williams College Museum of Art, 2005

Fantastics and Eccentrics in Chinese Painting, James Cahill, The Asia Society, 1967, cat. no. 12 (p. 46, and cf. p. 114)
Chinese Paintings from the Ching-Yuan Chai: the Cahill Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1974, cat. no. 36
Archives of Asian Art XXXI, Richard Vinograd, 'Reminiscences of Ch'in-huai: Tao-chi and the Nanking School', 1977-1978, fig. 23 (p. 21)
Shadows of Mt. Huang. Chinese Painting and Printing of the Anhui School, James Cahill, ed., Berkeley: University Art Museum, University of California, 1981, cat. no. 29 (p. 88 and cf. p. 82)
The Compelling Image. Nature and Style in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Painting, James Cahill, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982, fig. 5.15 (p. 159)
The Single Brushstroke: 600 Years of Chinese Painting from the Ching Yuan Chai Collection, Vancouver Art Gallery, 1985, cat. no. 64, pp. 85-86
Chinese Art in Overseas Collections (Haiwai yizhen)—Painting, Taipei: National Palace Museum, 1985, Pl. 154, p. 189
Yiyuan Duoying (Gems From Chinese Fine Arts) Vol. 41, Shanghai, People's Art Press, June 1990, no. 51, p. 38
Comprehensive Illustrated Catalog of Chinese Paintings (Chūgoku Kaiga Sōgō Zuroku), American and Canadian Collections, Kei Suzuki, comp. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1982, A31-159, p. I-366

-Overall in good condition; The paper bears a tanning tone due to age -Some traces of well-carried out restoration can be found, particularly on the top part of the scroll, as seen in the illustration
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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At the fall of the Ming dynasty the artist known as Hongren was ordained as a Buddhist monk. Born into an impoverished family in Shexian, Anhui, he passed the provincial examination which, under normal circumstances, would have led to an official career. With the fall of the dynasty in 1644, however, he chose to avoid political entanglements and instead of serving the new regime he became a monk. This was the path taken by many like-minded scholars of the time.
Hongren spent the remainder of his short life in monasteries in and around the area of his birth. He became an important painter of landscapes and the leading artist of the Huangshan, or Anhui, School of painting. Hongren's painting style is characterized by dry, angular, and refined brushwork combined with a near-geometric treatment of form and an architectonic sense of structure.
In his inscription Hongren alludes to the Yuan dynasty Daoist painter Lu Guang. 'Spring Dawn at the Cinnabar Terrace,' a rare example of Lu's work in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, employs a similar compositional structure, in which a jagged watercourse and slanted plateaus lead the viewer back in space and upward toward a central peak. Hongren's brushwork, however, is more angular and dry than Lu's, and Hongren's rocks are sparcer and more austere, relying primarily on contour lines to render volume and form, with little interior texturing. Hongren's chief stylistic sources are the two great Yuan dynasty masters, Ni Zan (1301-1374) and Huang Gongwang (1269-1354). Hongren's dry, angular brushwork, as well as the stark, unadorned simplicity of his tree and rock forms, are certainly reminiscent of the detached purity evoked by Ni Zan's landscapes. The neat compositional logic, based on the artful juxtaposition and overlapping of angular and rounded forms, is derived from the landscapes of Huang Gongwang.
Hongren undoubtedly felt a kinship with Ni Zan, Huang Gongwang, and Lu Guang that transcended stylistic influences. Like Hongren, these Yuan dynasty painters were yimin (leftover subjects), who retreated from society and spent the last years of their lives engaged in spiritual and artistic pursuits.