Geese Landing on Sandbars
Chang Ku-nien
Description
Winter 2015 Gallery Rotation
The interaction of painting and poetry is fundamental in Chinese art and art criticism. A colophon on this painting contains a poem by the late Ming dynasty (1368–1644) writer Wang Baigu (1535–1613), who, like Chang Ku-nien, was a native of Jiangsu Province. The poem describes a group of geese lingering in the reeds. Geese were a common metaphor for homesickness in Chinese art and literature. As an artist who was born and raised in mainland China, fled to Taiwan, and later immigrated to the United States, Chang must have been familiar with the feeling of homesickness, which suffuses this twilight scene of water, sandbars, and birds.
Subject Matter:
The colophon is a poem by Wang Baigu. The scene is a description of the poem, which visualized the poem and at the same time makes the painting poetic. The poem describes a group of geese lingering in the reeds. Geese were a common metaphor for homesickness in Chinese art and literature. Chang must have been familiar with the feeling of homesickness, which suffuses this twilight scene of water, sandbars, and birds.
Physical Description:
A scene of geese in pond and on sandbars. The geese are congregated in the lower left hand side of the painting, as are most of the reeds growing from the sand bars. Some geese can also be seen flying in the middle of the painting, though they are not as prominent. Five lines of calligraphy are lcoated in the upper right of the painting.
Usage Rights:
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