An incredible discovery: “Clearing After Snowfall Along the River”
One of the paintings currently on display in the Maurice J. Sullivan Family Gallery, Clearing After Snowfall Along the River, has perhaps the most fascinating backstory of any artwork in HoMA’s collection.
The story begins in Nanjing, during the Chenghua period (1464–1487). A lacquered bamboo door bolt in the imperial palace fell to the ground and broke open. (The emperor’s residence had been moved to Beijing over a century earlier, and one would imagine the complex was increasingly less well maintained.) However, this was no ordinary door bolt: inside of it were hidden three scrolls, one of which, upon closer examination, turned out to be a lost masterpiece by one of the earliest literati artists in all of Chinese history, Wang Wei (699–759). Wang was a remarkable talent, equally skilled in poetry, music, calligraphy, and painting. He brought a poet’s aesthetic to the latter, taking the natural world as his primary subject for the first time, and in so doing forever elevated the genre of painting to a preeminent place. By the 15th century, virtually all of the works by the master’s hand had been lost, and his style could only be imagined in part from later copies. The sudden recovery of an original Wang Wei was of unprecedented importance.
About a century later, the scroll made its way into the collection of Feng Kaizhi (1548–1595), who documented its startling reappearance in an inscription he added to it. The painting had a profound impact on him, and he treated it with reverence:
“After looking at it several times my spirit was aroused. I closed my door, burned incense and made myself free from all other things, and then I felt the spirit of the mountains, the freshness of the streams.” (translation by Osvald Siren, Chinese Painting: Leading Masters and Principles)
Feng was a contemporary of perhaps the most significant Chinese art historian of all time, Dong Qichang (1555–1636), whose unifying theory of Chinese painting elevated literati art to a position of unrivalled superiority. Consequently, Dong had an intense interest in Wang Wei as its progenitor. Feng allowed him to borrow the painting—an inscription by Dong would both affirm its authenticity and raise its value even more—and Dong described his first viewing with spiritual rapture:
“I fasted for three days; then I unrolled it…I had never seen a genuine work by him, but only thought of such in my heart. Now I found that the picture of my thoughts corresponded to reality. Is it possible that in a former life I entered [Wang Wei’s] studio and saw him seated at work and that the impressions of former ways have not been forgotten?” (translation by Siren)
Not surprisingly, the high esteem in which Dong Qichang held this painting (and a few others he attributed to Wang Wei over his lifetime search) caused it to become one of the most celebrated artworks of the generations that followed, and from the 17th century on Chinese painting is characterized by compositions it inspired “in the manner of Wang Wei.”
Traditionally attributed to Wang Wei (699–759), Clearing After Snowfall Along the River (details), China, Ming dynasty, 16th century, Handscroll; ink and color on paper. Gift of Mr. Robert Lehman, 1960 (2725.1)
Of course, it would be perfectly reasonable to question how one of the world’s most precious artworks ended up hidden inside a door bolt in the first place, and how this delicate object managed to survive in such an environment for (possibly) centuries. But that is only the beginning of the complexities surrounding this mysterious painting; today there are three different versions of it, and we cannot say with any certainty which of them, if any, was the one owned by Feng Kaizhi and examined by Dong Qichang. Two of them, HoMA’s Clearing After Snowfall Along the River and another handscroll, were owned by the famous politician, scholar and antiquarian Luo Zhenyu (1866–1940). Luo was on the wrong side of history in supporting China’s last imperial dynasty when it was overthrown, and he went into exile in Japan after the 1911 Revolution, where he sold one of the paintings to a private Japanese collector, in whose family it remains today.
Known as the Ogawa version, this handscroll includes the aforementioned original inscriptions by Feng Kaizhi and Dong Qichang. However, since the inscriptions are attached to the end of the scroll, rather than being directly on the painting, this is not an indicator of authenticity for the painting itself—in fact, one of the rumors surrounding the painting is that Feng Kaizhi’s son removed the inscriptions after his death, had a forgery of the painting made, and attached them to it so he could sell it for an outrageously high price—while still keeping Wang Wei’s original. Luo Zhenyu continued to stay on the wrong side of history in supporting the Japanese puppet state of Manchuria, and took the other scroll with him to Tianjin, where the eminent early Sinologist Osvald Siren examined it in 1922—adding that Luo “did not hesitate to declare them both as originals by Wang Wei.” Siren found this second painting, which is the one now in HoMA’s collection, to be much better preserved than the Ogawa version (which he felt was in such poor condition that it was “difficult to accept or to disprove” its authenticity), and “altogether a better unified pictorial rendering.” (The third version is in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, but does not enter directly into our story).
Did an original scroll by Wang Wei somehow find its way into a bamboo door bolt at the palace? Which painting was it that so inspired Feng Kaizhi and Dong Qichang? These questions will likely never be resolved. In the meantime, one thing we can confirm is Siren’s conclusion that HoMA’s Clearing After Snowfall Along the River is a superb painting. Its delicate, precisely controlled brushwork shows exceptional technical mastery, while its composition, which Siren described as “sensitively unified,” is truly lyrical in its arrangement and progression. It is without doubt an homage to the archaic style that later artists associated with Wang Wei and the 8th century, but this is accomplished in such a way that feels spontaneous, without any sense of artifice. For these reasons, HoMA’s first Curator of Asian Art, Gustav Ecke—who acquired the painting for the museum—postulated that it was probably made only about a generation before Feng Kaizhi and Dong Qichang, sometime in the first half of the 16th century, a period when Chinese painting flourished under the leadership of many brilliant artists who today carry a similar status for us as Wang Wei would have for them. That the handscroll was accepted as a crowning achievement of literati painting from the 17th century on, regardless of its actual author, is a testament to its inherent success as a work of art.
A final note on Clearing After Snowfall Along the River’s history: when Siren published Chinese Painting: Leading Masters and Principles in 1956, he had lost track of the painting’s whereabouts. It emerged again four years later when it was gifted to the museum by Robert Lehman (1891–1969), whose collection of European paintings now forms an entire wing of the Metropolitan Museum. The painting came into the museum with one recently—and audaciously—added collector’s seal: that of Alice Boney (1901–1988), the highly influential and equally flamboyant art dealer who helped raise both historic and modern Chinese art to international prominence in the mid-20th century.
– Shawn Eichman, Curator of Asian Art
Snowfall on Indian Territory
This will come to you either unframed and tubed with complimentary Continental U.S. shipping – use code ARTFREESHIP – or you can add a custom frame with us.
“Most of the time, we do not remember that another people used to live on the land that we call ours today. Unlike us, they made sure that their footsteps were never heard, and that their way of using the land did not interfere with the lives of the next generations. Unlike us, they did not own the land in the same sense that we own it today, but they belonged to it and it belonged to them.” – Alexander Volkov
The Marcus Ashley fine art gallery displays a large assemblage of Alexander Volkov art in their on-site and online galleries. The realism artist and master of light is highly respected in art circles for his oil paintings of natural landscapes. These pieces are sought-after wall adornments for modern abodes, country clubs, spa resorts, and upscale hotels with neutral or bare walls. They inspire deep thought and calm among viewers.
In the words of Volkov, Snowfall on Indian Territory is “about the combination of tension and calm which comes at the end of fall and precedes the coming of winter.” It is also a meditation on the passage of time, one of the recurring themes by the artist. The thick, gnarled roots of the trees deeply embedded in the earth declare centuries-old ownership and territory. A foggy background lends a mystical ambiance to the scene. And Volkov’s signature light-and-dark interplay assures that balance can be achieved even in the clashing of natural elements.
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“Most of the time, we do not remember that another people used to live on the land that we call ours today. Unlike us, they made sure that their footsteps were never heard, and that their way of using the land did not interfere with the lives of the next generations. Unlike us, they did not own the land in the same sense that we own it today, but they belonged to it and it belonged to them.” – Alexander Volkov
The Marcus Ashley fine art gallery displays a large assemblage of Alexander Volkov art in their on-site and online galleries. The realism artist and master of light is highly respected in art circles for his oil paintings of natural landscapes. These pieces are sought-after wall adornments for modern abodes, country clubs, spa resorts, and upscale hotels with neutral or bare walls. They inspire deep thought and calm among viewers.
In the words of Volkov, Snowfall on Indian Territory is “about the combination of tension and calm which comes at the end of fall and precedes the coming of winter.” It is also a meditation on the passage of time, one of the recurring themes by the artist. The thick, gnarled roots of the trees deeply embedded in the earth declare centuries-old ownership and territory. A foggy background lends a mystical ambiance to the scene. And Volkov’s signature light-and-dark interplay assures that balance can be achieved even in the clashing of natural elements.
