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Object number2017.21

Landscape

Artist (American, 1954)
Date2010
Mediumhanging scroll, ink on paper
Dimensionsimage: 45 1/2 in. × 19 in. (115.6 × 48.3 cm)
mount: 6 ft. 6 in. × 24 3/4 in. (198.1 × 62.9 cm)
Credit LineJoy Light East Asian Art Acquisition and Exhibition Fund
Exhibition History"The Way Forward: New Acquisitions at the KIA," Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, Michigan, Joy Light Gallery of Asian Art (Aug 26, 2018 - Dec 2, 2018)Label Text[Collection Highlight] The expansive vista is a traditional subject with a long history in Chinese painting. This hanging scroll reveals Arnold Chang’s immense experience with traditional artistic conventions, not only as a painter, but as a respected art historian and connoisseur. His dry brush technique captures the craggy roughness of bark and stone. The soft, grey washes masterfully indicate hazy distances. With no ink at all, only the whiteness of the paper, mists billow at the base of waterfalls. While traditional ink painting should be deeply observant of nature, it is not bound by Western notions of realism and perspective. Painters typically invent imaginary—even fanciful—configurations of mountain and water. From a “floating perspective” above ridges and rivers, the viewer can soar in and over the entire landscape without the limitations of the single viewpoint common in Western painting. One convention for signaling a division between near and far is the insertion of opaque clouds to obscure the middle ground. However, in this painting’s middle ground, Chang interjects a diagonal, rocky protrusion that interrupts the river’s path. Somewhat like the topsy-turvy stairways of M.C. Escher, this ambiguous stretch of rock stitches near and far together in a way that is both visually seamless and logically perplexing. The result is a compelling blend of traditional scenery and contemporary abstraction. Chang’s contemporary Landscape not only provides the anticipated rejuvenating journey through nature, but also an invigorating exercise for the mind.