Shitao: Returning Home

A collection of paintings from Shitao’s “Returning Home”.

“Landscapes alternate with flowers in this album of…small leaves of paintings and poetic comments that is designed to be perused slowly, one pair of leaves at a time. Each painting and its accompanying poem were conceived as a single expressive image in a superb harmony of painting, poetry, and calligraphy. The paintings are “written” with the same type of brushstrokes as the calligraphy, while in the “painterly” calligraphy individual characters and brushstrokes in varying sizes and ink tones frequently imitate such pictorial motifs as orchid petals and leaves and misty and wavy landscape elements. Even the painter’s seals are integrated into the design.” (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)