Yuan dynasty Qian Xuan (ca. 1235-before 1307)
Autumn Melons
- Hanging scroll, ink and colors on paper
- 63.1 x 30 cm
Qian Xuan, a native of Wuxing, Zhejiang, was a provincial presented scholar (jinshi), a status that often yielded ideal position as official in traditional China. He excelled at poetry and prose as well as painting and calligraphy, earning a reputation for his arts in his hometown area. In the early Yuan dynasty, he and his renowned friend Zhao Mengfu (1254-1322) were known as two of the "Eight Talents of Wuxing." However, Qian refused to serve as an official for the foreign Mongol rulers or even retain his status as a Confucian scholar. Instead, he remained at home and, destroying all of his writings, took up the profession of a painter. His decision resulted in later generations viewing him as a "left-over subject," or loyalist, of the Song dynasty.
Qian Xuan was an all-around painter, being gifted in many subjects ranging from blue-and-green landscapes to "broken-branch" flowers, figures, and even animals. His search for revivalist styles that followed those of the Tang, Five Dynasties, and early Song helped open a new direction for painting in the Yuan dynasty.
This painting was done in various layers of light and dark shades of green that seem to sculpt the round presence of the green melon , leaves, and tendrils. Along with pure white flowers , the coloring of this work is pure and beautiful. The melon leaves undulate as they twist and turn in space. The delicate rendering of the leaves include the veins and even the areas eaten by insects . The delicate and refined purity here retains much of the manner associated with Southern Song paintings but without the somewhat sweet and overrefined features.
The poem on the painting inscribed by the artist includes a reference to the "Dong Ling Melon." Dong Ling, the Marquis of Zhaoping in the Qin dynasty, became an ordinary citizen at the end of the dynasty and thereupon fell on hard times. He grew melons east of the city of Changan for a living. Because the melons that he grew were especially sweet, they became known as Dong Ling Melons. Dong Ling grew melons, and Qian Xuan sold paintings. As someone who abandoned his status as a Confucian scholar after the fall of his dynasty and had to earn a living as a professional painter, Qian Xuan probably associated with the fallen noble figure of Dong Ling. Thus, even apparently simple subjects can take on deeper meaning through references by the scholar.