Dong Qichang art exhibition to be held at Shanghai Museum

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Shanghai Museum will showcase over 150 paintings and calligraphy works by Dong Qichang and other artists on Friday.

Dong Qichang (1555 – 1636) was a painter, scholar, calligrapher and art theorist of the later Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644) period, dating back about 400 years.

It is the first ever Dong Qichang art exhibition in China. The items come from collections of museums and institutions at home and abroad, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Tokyo National Art Museum.

Dong Qichang's tallest vertical painting, seen below, is known as Mount Qingbian. Borrowed from the Cleveland Museum of Art, the 2.25-meter scroll is only shown for six months every five years. Museum staffs need to arrange it as precisely as doing arithmetic.

A painting of Dong Qichang to be exhibited in Shanghai Museum. /VCG Photo

"There are no such high ceilings in regular museums. So it's difficult to lend it out. For this exhibition at Shanghai Museum, our museum has been very supportive," said Xiao Yixia from the Cleveland Museum of Art.

And the 18-meter scroll is Dong's longest piece of calligraphy.

The exhibition features over 90 works Dong created between the age of 35 and 82. It is said he started to learn painting from Huang Gongwang, a famous painter in the Song Dynasty (960-1279), and that Huang's work "Remaining Mountain" was a major inspiration.

"When Dong Qichang was learning to paint, he was very much influenced by Huang Gongwang's Remaining Mountain. And he also made a lot of prefaces and postscripts on it," the exhibition curator Leng Lizhong said.

What's more, other works from four dynasties that influenced Dong's art career are also on display. Some 40 borrowed items will be returned before the exhibition ends on March 10.