August 31Comments Off on The U.S. National Park Service Grapples With Its Racist OriginsCategory: Facebook, Feed
“‘The way we navigate that history is by not flinching,’ says Michael Brune, Sierra Club’s executive director. ‘It is true that there were a lot of individuals who were white supremacists or eugenicists or who were making racist comments who were part of the beginning of the conservation movement, or who fought successfully to create […]
August 31Comments Off on SalonCategory: Facebook, Feed
Pleasantly distracting having this going on in the background of the office during my meeting block today. SALON TALKS: Jonathan Goldsmith, formerly known as the Most Interesting Man in the World as the face of Dos Equis, joins us to discuss life after capturing the imagination of a global cult following. Goldsmith will also discuss […]
The Confucian value of filial
piety—a respect for one’s parents, elders, and ancestors—was a signature
characteristic of Shen
Zhou’s art. Shen, one of the leading
literati masters of the Ming Dynasty and the founder of the Wu School, paid deference to one of his
early teachers, Chen Kuan, by painting and gifting him Lofty Mount Lu for his 70th birthday. The painting depicts
Mount Lu, a landmark in Chen’s ancestral home. The mountain’s height paired
with the wispy brushstrokes evokes the lofty quality of Chen’s teaching style. This
act of filial piety celebrated the relationship between teacher and student as
well as the reaffirmation of customary Chinese principles.
Lofty
Mount Lu fills
a large scroll yet retains an intimate attention to detail. Shen took careful technical
steps to develop the painting—in order to create the three-dimensional effect
of the landscape, he first drew contours of the mountains and slopes with
hemp-fiber strokes, then tinted them with light ink followed by layers of dark
ink. Shen’s precise technique accompanies a similarly attentive handling of
composition. The slopes draw the viewer’s eye downward, along the motion of the
waterfall to the bottom of the scroll where something seems concealed—hidden amongst
the lush scenery stands an old man at the water’s edge, looking out into the
distance.
Post
by Allison Wu, an intern for art reference at Oxford University Press in New
York.
Image credit:
Shen Zhou, Lofty Mount Lu, ink and
colors on paper mounted as a hanging scroll, 193.8 × 98.1 cm, 1467 (National
Palace Museum, Taipei); image via Wikimedia Commons.
