武陵桃源 Buryô tôgen (Wuling’s Peach Blossom Spring), Watanabe Gentai

Artwork Overview

Watanabe Gentai, 武陵桃源 Buryô tôgen (Wuling’s Peach Blossom Spring)
late 1700s–early 1800s, Edo period (1600–1868)
1749–1822
武陵桃源 Buryô tôgen (Wuling’s Peach Blossom Spring), late 1700s–early 1800s, Edo period (1600–1868)
Where object was made: Japan
Material/technique: silk; inorganic pigment
Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 155.2 x 79.4 cm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 61 1/8 x 31 1/4 in
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 228.6 x 97.8 cm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 90 x 38 1/2 in
Roller Dimensions (Width x Diameter): 104 cm
Roller Dimensions (Width x Diameter): 40 15/16 in
Credit line: Museum purchase: R. Charles and Mary Margaret Clevenger Fund
Accession number: 1998.0707
Not on display

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Images

Label texts

Archive Label 2003: The ‘Peach Blossom Spring,’ a story by poet Tao Yuanming (365-427), became the classic expression of longing for a timeless, peaceful utopia. Countless references to it appear in poetry and painting throughout East Asia. The fable concerns a lost fisherman who discovers a spring surrounded by fragrant peach blossoms that leads to a cave. The cave is a portal to an isolated valley within which is a small village, separated for generations from the outside world. People there live in harmony and simplicity. The fisherman remains for a few days, then leaves to get his family and return to this idyllic spot. Unfortunately, he is never again able to find the mysterious spring. Watanabe Gentai presents the narrative elements of this famous story as subsidiary to the lush landscape. The fisherman is seen at the bottom, surrounded by blossoming peach trees and confronting the mountainous barrier that isolates the secret valley. He is about to discover the cave that leads to the village beyond. Within the valley, the village is portrayed with rustic simplicity. The villagers are busily engaged in agriculture and fishing, or are seen visiting each other in their houses or resting in pavilions. In the distance is a mountain range with a large central peak, its prominent placement in the painting a standard form of landscape composition. The mountains and hills are painted in the ‘Blue and Green’ manner, a color scheme used to evoke otherworldly, idyllic places and bygone ages. The artist was a renowned landscape painter, known for his technical expertise, and creates here an elegant combination of landscape and narrative, naturalism and stylization. Exhibition Label: "The Art of Stories Told," Jun-2004, Veronica de Jong The celebrated poet Tao Yuanming (365-427) who retired from public office so as to enjoy his final years writing and growing chrysanthemums wrote the “Peach Blossom Spring” prose-poem. Tao Yuanming’s desire to realize a simple and peaceful life is evident in this story of a fisherman that discovered within a grove of blossoming peach trees a cave leading to a secluded valley inhabited by people cut off from the rest of China. They lived prosperously and happily and the fisherman enjoyed their company for several days until he decided to return home. When he tried to revisit this idyllic place, though, he could no longer find it and was never able to return. This story is depicted in vivid colors of blue and green, which in Chinese paintings were often associated with depictions of immortal paradises. The utopian realm and Chinese empire are strikingly divided in the lower section of the painting by a large rocky mountain and the idyllic village is sensitively depicted in great detail. Exhibition Label: "Time/Frame," Jun-2008, Robert Fucci, Shuyun Ho, Lauren Kernes, Lara Kuykendall, Ellen C. Raimond, and Stephanie Teasley Peach Blossom Spring is a timeless utopia created by Tao Qian (365-427 CE) that has been one of the most important subjects in East Asian art throughout history. In the story, a fisherman accidentally discovered a secret village hidden in a deep vale of peach blossoms. It is an ideal world, where every villager enjoys a peaceful life and old and young alike are provided for. Isolated from the outside world for hundreds of years, they know nothing about the latest news, the current fashion trends, or which emperor is on the throne. Nor do they care to join the exciting outside world. Time loses its meaning in this ideal place. The philosophical messages of the story are particularly intriguing for our fast-paced modern society. What are we pursuing? And what does time mean in the twenty-first century?

Resources

Audio

Didactic – Art Minute
Didactic – Art Minute
Episode 161 Sep-2008, Ai-lian Liu I’m David Cateforis with another Art Minute from the Spencer Museum of Art. Active in the late 18th and early nineteenth centuries, Watanabe Gentai was one of many Japanese painters who depicted mainly Chinese subjects in a Chinese style. His Peach Blossom Spring illustrates a classical Chinese fable of a fisherman’s discovery of a utopian paradise. In the foreground, the lost fisherman on a stream lined with blossoming peach trees floats toward a towering hill that blocks his way. Following his gaze, we find a small tunnel leading through the hill to another world, an idyllic village on the banks of the stream filled with delightful scenes of daily life. Men fish, herd or tend the fields, while in the houses, women weave, sew and cook. All is prosperous and peaceful. The artist surrounded this small valley with mountains in brilliant mineral blue and green - a color scheme traditionally associated with Daoist fairylands that serves to transform the quaint village into a utopia. At the same time, the jewel-toned landscape creates a barrier and heightens the sense of this ideal world’s inaccessibility. With thanks to Ai-lian Liu for her text, from the Spencer Museum of Art, I’m David Cateforis.