Xiang Shengmo, “Invitation to Reclusion,” detail, ink on paper, handscroll, 1625–26 (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Fund)
Asia Society
725 Park Ave. at 70th St.
Through Sunday, June 2, $10, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-288-6400
www.asiasociety.org
The state of the world getting you down? Considering just getting away from it all, leaving everything behind and heading to the mountains to live a life of quiet contemplation and study? As the Ming dynasty fell in China in 1644 to the Manchus, many public servants, who were also painters, poets, and calligraphers, did just that. Their work is documented in the beautiful, meditative exhibit “The Artful Recluse: Painting, Poetry, and Politics in 17th-Century China,” consisting of paintings, drawings, artist books, vertical wall scrolls, and horizontal handscrolls of some twenty feet in length. Splendidly curated by Peter C. Sturman and Susan Tai, the show features works by such talented recluses as Chen Jiru, Dong Qichang, Xiang Shengmo, Chen Hongshou, Gao Jian, Shitao, and madman Bada Shanren, scholar-painters who paid tribute to the past while often slyly commenting on the present and future as the Qing dynasty took over. The scenes depicted often include a solitary subject who is hard to find, perhaps out on the river, inside a hut, or on a mountain path, a mere spec in the vast natural world. Divided into such sections as “Summoning the Recluse: Landscape as Refuge,” “1644: A Landscape Transformed,” “Nanjing: City of Memories,” and “Returning Home: Stability and Normalcy,” the exhibition includes excellent wall labels accompanying each work, shedding light on such gems as Xiang’s “Summoning the Recluse” and “Invitation to Reclusion,” Zhang Feng’s “Immortals’ Secrets in a Stone Cave,” Bada’s “Small Fish,” Shen Shichong’s “Landscape,” and Dong’s “Contemplating the Dao with Emotions Cleansed.” The show runs through June 2, giving visitors the chance to cleanse their own emotions and wonder just what it might be like to really get away from it all.