WANG Jianzhang
(China)
- Title
- Returning home from gathering fungus
- Other titles:
- Cai-zhi-gui-wan-tu
- Place of origin
-
China
- Period
- Chongzhen 1628 - 1644 → Ming dynasty 1368 - 1644 → China
- Year
- 1628
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- hanging scroll; ink and slight colour on paper
- Dimensions
-
85.4 x 51.2cm image; 187.0 x 74.0cm mount
- Signature & date
- Signed and dated u.l. corner., in Chinese, inscribed in black ink "...on the day of the Duanyang (fifth of the fifth month), in the year of Wuchen (1628) painted and inscribed by Wang Jianzhang". Signed u.l. corner., in Chinese stamped in red ink, "Yu Laixuan [artist's seals]”. Signed u.l. corner., in Chinese stamped in red ink, “Wang Jianzhang [artist's seals]".
- Credit
- Purchased with funds provided by Edward Sternberg 1991
- Accession number
- 265.1991
- Location
- Not on display
- Further information
‘The isolation of the figure in the painting the dongtian-like mountain sets, and the magic fungus, all evoke the Daoist idea of individuals seeking spiritual freedom and immortality in the great mountains. Wang Jianzhang was born in Quanzhou in Fujian province, where local histories document his skill at drawing but little more is known of him. Some of his landscape paintings reached Japan (the source of this painting), probably through monks of the Obaku sect of Zen Buddhism, which was transferred to Japan after the fall of the Ming. The poem reads:
Trees on the cliff cage clouds, half moist.
The brushwood gate beside a steam is newly opened.
Facing the dawn, I seek for a poem, all alone;
As I gather fungus the sun sets, and I return.’‘The Asian Collections: Art Gallery of New South Wales’. pg.148.
© 2003 Trustees, Art Gallery of New South Wales- Bibliography (6)
-
Jackie Menzies (Australia) (Author), Art of the Brush - Chinese & Japanese painting calligraphy, Sydney, 1995, 9 (illus.), 10.
Ewen McDonald (Australia) (Editor), The Art Gallery of New South Wales collections, Sydney, 1994, 200 (colour illus.).
Bruce James (Australia) (Author), Edmund Capon (England; Australia, b.1940) (Director), Art Gallery of New South Wales handbook, Domain, 1999, 254 (colour illus.).
'Landscape Painting', The Asian Collections Art Gallery of New South Wales 2003, 2003, 148-149 (colour illus.). The colour illus. on page 149 is a detail of this work.
Adventures in Asia. An education kit for the Asian gallery 2003, 2003, 6 (colour illus.). card no.6
'The Priest of Ink' by Goldie Sternberg, pg. 14., Look Dec 1993-Jan 1994, Dec 1993-Jan 1994, 14 (illus.).
- Exhibition history (2)
-
Great gifts, great patrons, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 17 Aug 1994–19 Oct 1994.
Art of the brush, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 23 Sep 1995–12 Nov 1995.
