Shao Mi
Landscape in the Blue and Green Style

ink and color mounted on silk
70 x 16 in.
2015.210
Gift of Stephen and Sophie Mathonnet-VanderWell

The artist depicts a man’s journey from the base of a mountain, across a lake, and up the mountain. This landscape adheres to the concepts of traditional scholar paintings in which the viewer visualizes himself as the figure near the bottom of the painting traveling up the mountain. These paintings were common among the social elite who were often confined in urban cities, serving as respite from reality by allowing the viewer to go on a mental and spiritual journey in an idyllic natural environment.

Gallery label text 2016
A Scholar’s Studio: Chinese Works from the Mathonnet Collection
October 28 – December 12, 2016
The students involved in curating this show come from two classes – Carleton Professor Kathleen Ryor’s Arts of China and St. Olaf Professor Karil Kucera’s Visual Culture in Modern China