The Peach Blossom Spring

Artist Zhang Daqian (Chinese, 1899–1983)

Date20th century

MediumHanging scroll: ink and colors on paper

Dimensions43 x 16 1/4 inches (109.2 x 41.3 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineAcquired through the Ernest I. White, Class of 1893, Endowment Fund

Terms

Paintings
Landscape
Scroll
Chinese
Hanging scroll: ink and colors
Boats
Bodies of water
Caves
Cottages
Flowers
Footbridges
Grottoes
Landscapes
Mountains
Peach blossoms
Springs (bodies of water)
Townscapes
Trees
Paper

Object number75.061

Label CopyZhang Daqian grew up in Nanjiang, Sichuan province. As a young man, he moved to Shanghai in 1919 and became an important member of emerging artistic circles there, and later in Beijing. After leaving China in 1949, he lived in India, Argentina, Brazil, the United States, and finally settled in Taiwan. His self-exile and disillusionment with China, was expressed frequently in his paintings. For centuries Chinese poets and painters asserted political protest through references to the Peach Blossom Spring, by Tao Qian (365-427). Zhang owned a painting of this subject by the Qing dynasty master Shi Tao that inspired his numerous paintings of the theme. The story involves a fisherman who stumbles upon a hidden cave within a grove of flowering peach trees. The deep cavern turns out to be the gateway to an idyllic world free from the tumult of the fisherman's own time. But when the fisherman attempts to return to the utopia, it has vanished. ("Debating Art: Chinese Intellectuals at the Crossroads," curated by Yuhua Ding, with assistance by Elizabeth Emrich, and presented at the Johnson Museum February 2-July 8, 2018)

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