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Wang Xizhi Watching Geese (detail)

Qian Xuan, ca. 1295. China, Yuan dynasty.

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Thirty works are on view at a time, ten to a room. Every day at midnight UTC, the ten that have hung longest go back into storage and ten others come out, so each work hangs for three days and then rests for three. A work always returns to the same place on the same wall.

A man sits in an open pavilion among bamboo and trees, looking out over water where geese swim, beside blue and green rocks.
Image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access (CC0). Select it for the full size.

Wang Xizhi, who lived in the 300s, is often called the greatest calligrapher in Chinese history. A story says that he loved geese and learned something about moving the brush by watching the graceful turn of their necks. Qian Xuan paints him in an open pavilion beside the water, looking out at the geese swimming below. Bamboo and trees surround the pavilion, and the rocks are a bright mineral blue and green, a deliberately old-fashioned style that recalled much earlier painting. The scene is tiny and calm, and it suggests that learning can come from anywhere, even from a bird on a pond.

Look closely

  1. Find Wang Xizhi in the pavilion.
  2. Find the geese. How are they moving?
  3. Look at the blue and green rocks. Do they look real, or like jewels?

While you sit

A great artist watching geese. Watch something small and alive for a while and see what you learn.

Your seat in the galleries: a low cedar pavilion bench painted mineral blue-green.

About the work

Title
Wang Xizhi Watching Geese (detail)
Artist
Qian Xuan
Date
ca. 1295
From
China, Yuan dynasty
Medium
Handscroll; ink, color, and gold on paper
Size
Image: 9 1/8 x 36 1/2 in. (23.2 x 92.7 cm)
Rights
Public domain
Image
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access (CC0)
Record
The museum's page for this work

The words on this page were written for the campus, not taken from the museum's label.

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