Lot 442: Chong Son (1676-1759)

Eight views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers (So sang pal kyung) and calligraphy
Folding album of 16 pages: 8 paintings each signed Kyomjae and titled in Chinese characters as below; 8 pages of calligraphy, paper covers
Ink and light color on paper
14 3/4 x 10in. (37.5 x 25.5cm.) each

The Xiao and Xiang rivers flow through the modern province of Hunan, in the deep south of China. The sprawling Lake Dongting is at the northern edge of the province, which is one of the wettest regions of China. The scenic beauty of the landscape, which changes dramatically during the course of the four seasons, has long inspired poets and painters. The earliest surviving poems praising the Eight Views are by Song Ti in the eleventh century, but many sets of poems on this theme were written in later centuries, as well. The topic appealed to artists not only in China but in Korea and Japan. Chinese artists typically rendered the lush, humid landscape of southern China with dense mists to suggest moisture, and their paintings often seem softly out of focus. Quite the opposite is true here: Chong Son's landscapes are sharply defined, the air clear and crisp.

Chong Son, one of the great artists of the Choson dynasty (1392-1910), was no doubt transposing the Eight Views onto his native countryside. He is known as the preeminent painter of the new "true-view" landscape that emerged in the early eighteenth century. So-called true views imply that the artist was observing nature directly.

Chong Son paired his paintings with a set of poems written by Li Meng-yang (1473-1529), a Ming-dynasty poet and man of letters from Shensi with a strong interest in the Classics and a colorful history as a famous government official. Li's quatrains are paired with paintings that are titled by the artist with the names of the Eight Views. (The poems as arranged in this album no longer follow Li's original order.) The titles are as follows:

Night rain on Xiao and Xiang

Autumn moon over Lake Dongting

Mountain market, clear with rising mist

Fishing village in evening glow

River and sky in evening snow

Evening bell from mist-shrouded temple

Returning sail off distant shore

Wild geese descending to sandbar

For more about Li Meng-yang, see L. Carrington Goodrich, ed., Dictionary of Ming Biography, vol. 1 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), pp. 841-45. For a discussion of paintings of the Eight Views see Richard Stanley-Baker, "Mid-Muromachi Paintings of the Eight Views of Hsiao and Hsiang," Princeton University PhD dissertation, 1976; and Alfreda Merck, "Eight Views of the Hsiao and Hsiang Rivers by Wang Hung," in Images of the Mind (Princeton: Princeton University Art Museum, 1984), pp. 214-35.