Background
Qián Xuǎn was born in 1235, in Zhejiang, China.
Qián Xuǎn was born in 1235, in Zhejiang, China.
Qian started as an aspiring scholar-official during the Southern Song. However, he had difficulty climbing the ranks and when the Mongol-founded Yuan Dynasty took over South China in 1276 he gave up the idea altogether. Painted in his deliberately primitive “blue-and-green” style, this handscroll illustrates the story of Wang Xizhi, the calligraphy master of legendary fame and a practitioner of Daoist alchemy, who was said to derive inspiration from natural forms such as the graceful neck movements of geese. Although in 1286 his friend Zhao Mengfu accepted a position and so for a time it seemed he could as well, but he refused on patriotic grounds by citing his old age. Qian Xuan’s life after 1276 was devoted to painting and he became noted as a flower-and-bird painter. He was also adept at figure painting and landscape painting as well.
In creating a dreamlike evocation of antiquity, the artist prevented a realistic reading of his picture space as a way of asserting the disjuncture he felt after the fall of the Song royal house. He also mixed Song realism with an archaic Tang style.