Couplet in running script

Object Details

• Artist

  Jiang Ren 蔣仁 (1743-1795)

• Label

  Ten meters around, dragon bamboo stands taller than the trees,

  In five colors each, sacred mushrooms blossom as big as a fist.

  Jiang Ren was a native of Renhe (modern Hangzhou), Zhejiang Province. A landscape painter, poet, and calligrapher, he is included for his seal carving among the Eight Masters of Xiling. Although praised by some contemporaries as the best seal carver of his generation and recommended on at least one occasion for an official position, he contrived to avoid any political entanglements, choosing instead to live quietly in a small rundown house outside the city. Jiang was solitary and taciturn by nature and kept aloof from society throughout his life.

  As a calligrapher, Jiang Ren worked primarily in the orthodox styles of the model-book tradition, and while he sometimes wrote in clerical script, he is most highly regarded for his standard script and running script, as here. In his running script, Jiang typically blended thick, dark horizontal lines with thinner, less pronounced vertical strokes, using these variations to pattern and texture his overall composition. Jiang's output was rather small and surviving works are comparatively few, while dated scrolls such as this couplet are even rarer still.

  This work is dedicated to an unidentified individual, evidently one of Jiang Ren's uncles, who was a poet and used the sobriquet Yipu (Gardener). Jiang presumably intended the two lines of the couplet to praise his uncle as an exceptional gardener capable of cultivating even such special plants as the "dragon bamboo" and sacred mushroom, a kind of fungus reputed to confer long life when ingested.

• Provenance

  To 1997

  Robert Hatfield Ellsworth (1929-2014), New York, NY. [1]

  From 1997

  Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, New York, NY. [2]

  Notes:

  [1] Curatorial Remark 4 in the object record.

  [2] See note 1. Also see Freer Gallery of Art Purchase List after 1920 file, Collections Management Office.

• Collection

  Freer Gallery of Art Collection

• Exhibition History

  Brushing the Past: Later Chinese Calligraphy from the Gift of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth (April 30, 2000 to January 2, 2001)

  Beyond the Legacy--Anniversary Acquisitions of the Freer Gallery of Art (October 11, 1998 to April 11, 1999)

• Previous custodian or owner

  Robert Hatfield Ellsworth (1929-2014)

• Origin

  China

• Credit Line

  Gift of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth in honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Freer Gallery of Art

• Type

  Calligraphy

• Restrictions and Rights

  Usage Conditions Apply

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Keep Exploring

• Related Resources

  collections.si.edu

• Date

  1780s

• Name

  Ellsworth, Robert Hatfield

• Place

  China

• Topic

  Art, Chinese Art, Qing dynasty (1644 - 1911), Robert Hatfield Ellsworth collection, Running script

• Culture

  Chinese

• Object Type

  Calligraphy (visual works)