Interview with Robert Jacobsen

Curator of Asian Art

1. One of the things that stands out in this work is the unusual point of view.

(1) An expansive view is crammed into this small painting.

Yes. This small fan painting gives us a remarkably expansive view of the universe.(1) When we analyze it we see that the artist—and he would have had to do this from his mind's eye—has looked down on his landscape, in a way, as if he were almost elevated. We call this aerial perspective.

2. What were the advantages of aerial perspective?

It's a device by which they could cram a great deal of imagined space and of course detail and interest into their small composition.

3. What is happening in the scene?

This is really a painting of harmonious coexistence of humankind and animal-kind in nature.

(2) The farmer and his ox—or possibly a water buffalo.

One topic or subtopic would be the farmer leading his oxen or buffalo—water buffalo—along the elevated dikes of his rice fields.(2) A river course runs right through the middle of the painting. On the far bank, trees lean over the shoreline. There's a little path here that leads you up to some roofs that are nestled back in the foliage, suggesting perhaps a farmhouse—maybe even a temple. In the upper part of the painting we have distant mountains, summarily brushed in. Our eye is left to imagine perhaps a bank of clouds, separating those distant mountains from the foreground.

4. How does this reflect the values of the time?

There is a remarkably large universe crammed into this little fan painting, it seems to me. That really is about the rhythms of nature and how the farmer is part of that rhythm. Both the Buddhists and Taoists would say that we, as humans, are not meant to fully understand nature, but to do our best to live harmoniously with these forces of nature—the weather patterns, the great rocks of the mountains, and the water that is essential to life here.