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| View Original: | An_artist's_great-granduncle,_Ming_Dynasty2.JPG (2048x1536) | |||
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| Keywords: An artist's great-granduncle, Ming Dynasty2.JPG Caption from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City <blockquote> <p>Zude surname unknown active 16th or early 17th century </p> <p>Portrait of the Artist's Great-Granduncle Yizhai at the Age of Eighty-Five </p> <p>Dated 1561 or 1621 ambigious Chinese term used for dating</p> <p>Hanging scroll ink and color on silk</p> <p>Inscribed by the artist</p> <p>Portraits of monarchs for use in the state cult of ancestor worship have a long tradition in China but the rise of private portraiture as a significant artistic genre arose only during the latter half of the sixteenth century as a result of increased economic prosperity and a growing spirit of individualism </p> <p>This image epitomizes the late Ming genre of formal portraiture in which the sitter is depicted frontally with a realistically described face set atop a body that is largely concealed beneath the stylized folds of an engulfing robe According to the inscription the painting depicts the artist's relative Yizhai on the occasion of his eighty-fifth birthday Unlike an ancestor portrait which was typically commissioned after a person's death and was therefore highly schematic this portrait was painted from life Nonetheless the mode of representation is basically linear with little use of shading to model facial features - a Western technique that was first introduced into China in the sixteenth century and did not become widespread until the mid-seventeenth century Yizhai is depicted in an informal hat and robe an indication that he either never held official rank or had adopted the costume of a gentleman living in retirement </p> <p></p> </blockquote> Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City 16th or 17th century Ming Dynasty Chinese artist named Zude active 16th or early 17th century PD-old Portrait paintings of men of China Paintings of the Ming Dynasty PD China Chinese paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Chinese ancestor portraits | ||||
