Artist of the week
Boats, pines and red autumn leaves
Shitao
Shitao, born Zhu Ruoji, an early Qing painter with a free, quick brush, from about 1690 to 1705. Two boats with tan sails come in to a white house on an orange headland, and a man in white sits hunched in a small boat below misty hills. Then hills thick with blue and green dots at Zhang Gong’s Grotto, pines in grey ink at Mount Huang, a house by a fenced field under a long poem for the Double Ninth, and people at ease under red autumn trees by an arched bridge.
As a puzzle
Build these slowly: much of the paper is left bare or washed in pale mist, and the hanging scrolls sit in plain pale mounts. Start from the strongest marks, the red seals, the black characters of the titles and poems, the tan sails and the orange headland, the red leaves of the autumn woods. Mount Huang is grey ink alone, so follow the dark pine boughs to the man in the boat. Returning Home is nearly empty paper around one small boat, so keep it very low; the grotto and the autumn woods are full of trees and dots and take a moderate count.
A good size here: 30–150 pieces.
Also filed under Chinese Painting
Subjects here: LandscapesMountains
6 pictures, pick one to build
