五代 傳董元 溪岸圖 軸|Riverbank
Medium
Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
Dimensions
Image: 86 3/4 × 43 in. (220.3 × 109.2 cm) Overall with mounting: 11 ft. 1/2 in. × 48 in. (336.6 × 121.9 cm) Overall with knobs: 11 ft. 1/2 in. × 53 in. (336.6 × 134.6 cm)
Classification
Paintings
Culture & Period
China · Southern Tang dynasty (937–76)
Department
Asian Art
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Ex coll.: C. C. Wang Family, Gift of Oscar L. Tang Family, in memory of Douglas Dillon, 2016
Accession Number
2016.750
Tags
About this artwork
This monumental landscape depicts a riverbank scene, attributed to Dong Yuan and dated to the period of the Southern Tang dynasty between 937 and 976. The hanging scroll presents a vertical composition showing mountains, rivers, trees, and small human figures integrated into a cohesive natural world. The painting exemplifies Dong Yuan's innovative style, with its absence of hard contour lines and use of subtle ink washes and soft-rubbed texture strokes to describe the distinctive rounded hills a...
Art Historical Context
This monumental hanging scroll, *Riverbank*, attributed to the renowned Southern Tang dynasty painter Dong Yuanactive mid-10th century), captures the serene harmony of nature in a towering vertical composition. Dating to the Southern Tang period (937–976), it depicts a misty riverbank alive with rounded hills, flowing waters, ancient trees, and tiny human figures dwarfed by the landscape. At over 220 cm tall—the tallest surviving early Chinese landscape painting—it invites viewers to ascend visually from the foreground shallows to distant mist-shrouded peaks,oking the spiritual essence of sout...