Between Heaven and Earth: Secular and Divine Figural Images in Chinese Paintings and Objects

About this book

The extensively researched in-depth full-colour catalogue features a painstaking selection of 19 paintings and 47 literati-taste objects. The emphasis of all of them is on the extraordinary range of Chinese figural representation with its tendency to humanize divine images and idealize secular figures so that they meet somewhere in the middle as informal icons. The earliest work is an important ink handscroll dated 1363 by the Yan figure painter Chang Wu. A fine and extremely amusing outline handscroll by Leng Mei painted before 1694 portrays the 18 lohan in a wild and expressive array; quite a rarity. In a completely different vein is the large silk portrait of Yen Hsiang-shih Commander in Chief of Kansu province in the mid-18th century. Among the objects dart are a number of rare masterpieces most notable among them an extremely delicate and rare rhinoceros horn carving of Pu-tai with five boys clambering over him.