Harvard Art Museums > 2010.608: Landscript Paintings Collections Search Exit Deep Zoom Mode Zoom Out Zoom In Reset Zoom Full Screen Add to Collection Order Image Copy Link Copy Citation Citation"Landscript (Xu Bing 徐冰) , 2010.608,” Harvard Art Museums collections online, Nov 21, 2024, https://hvrd.art/o/337239. This object does not yet have a description. Identification and Creation Object Number 2010.608 People Xu Bing 徐冰, Chinese (born 1955) Title Landscript Other Titles Original Language Title: 文字寫生 Classification Paintings Work Type painting, album leaf Date 2001 Places Find Spot: North America, United States, New York, New York City Culture Chinese Persistent Link https://hvrd.art/o/337239 Physical Descriptions Medium Album leaf; ink on paper; with artist signature reading "Xu Bing" (in idiosyncratic Roman letters); with artist circular, red, relief seal reading "Xu Bing" (in idiosyncratic Roman letters) Dimensions painting proper: 48.9 x 74.5 cm (19 1/4 x 29 5/16 in.) with mounting: 64.2 x 104.5 cm (25 1/4 x 41 1/8 in.) Inscriptions and Marks inscription: In lower right corner, in idiosyncratic Roman letters: "Xu Bing" (artist's signature) seal: Circular, red, relief, in idiosyncratic Roman letters, immediately above the signature: "Xu Bing" (impressed by the artist) Provenance Recorded Ownership History Xu Bing (the artist), New York, sold; to Patricia P. and Henry Tang, May 2001, gift; to Harvard Art Museums, December 2010. Acquisition and Rights Credit Line Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Patricia P. and Henry Tang in memory of Melvin R. Seiden Copyright © Xu Bing 徐冰 Accession Year 2010 Object Number 2010.608 Division Asian and Mediterranean Art Contact am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu Permissions The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request. Descriptions Description An album leaf, this painting depicts a thatched-roof cottage set in a lush landscape. The cottage sits at the very center of the composition, nestled between a small lake in the foreground and a series of rolling hills in the background and flanked on either side by groves of trees. Grasses and short bamboo plants surround the lake, in which various insects swim. A small, tile-roofed building appears to the (viewer's) left of the cottage, and vegetables grow in a garden to the left of the tile-roofed building. A clump of bamboo grows behind the thatched-roofed cottage. The trees to the right of the cottage are identified as cypresses and pines; those at the left of the composition are unidentified. Written in his own idiosyncratic Roman letters, the artist's signature reading Xu Bing appears in the lower right corner of the composition. The artist impressed his circular, red, relief seal immediately above his signature; the seal, also in his own idiosyncratic Roman letters, reads "Xu Bing". Xu Bing has coined the English word "Landscript" to describe his landscapes of this type; the proper Chinese translation is 文字寫生 ("wenzi xiesheng"), though it sometimes also is translated as 讀風景 ("dufengjing"). Landscapes of this type use Chinese characters as pictorial elements, the characters varying from standard script ("kaishu") and draft script ("caoshu") to simplified forms as well as such archaic forms as bronze and oracle-bone scripts. Thus, the doorways of both thatched-roof cottage and tile-roofed building are represented with the character meaning "door" ("men"), just as the windows in the thatched-roof cottage are represented with the character for window ("chuang"). The various characters incorporated into the composition can be identified as follows: Doors: "men" 門 (door, doorway, gate); Windows: "chuang" 窗 (window, portal); Thatched roof: "cao" 草 (grass); Tile roof: "wa" 瓦 (rooftile); Beans: "douzi " 豆子 (bean)--the plants in the lower right corner, in front of the lake; Bamboo: "zhu" 竹 (bamboo)--the plants in the lower left corner and behind the thatched-roof cottage; Insects: "chong" 虫 (insects, bugs, worms)--the tadpole-like animals in the lake; Soil: "tu" 土 (earth, soil)--the characters to the right of the lake and at the top center of the composition; Vegetables: "cai" 菜 (vegetables)--the plants in the garden to the left of the tile-roofed building; Trees: "mu" 木 (trees, wood)--the trees at the left of the composition, to the left of the vegetable garden; Grove: "lin" 林 (copse, grove, woods, forest)--the trees at the left of the composition, to the left of the vegetable garden; Leaves: "yezi" 葉子 (leaves)--the trees in the upper left corner of the composition, above the "mu" and "lin" characters; because the trees are far away, one sees only the trees' crowns (i.e. leaves), rather than the trunks and branches; Cypress: "bo" or "bai" 柏 (cypress tree)--the trees to the right of the thatched cottage; Pine: "song" 松 (pine tree)--the trees at the right edge of the composition. Xu Bing's artistic practice is an exploration of language. In works ranging from monumental installations to handcrafted books, he plays with the written word, usually in the form of the Chinese character. Working in a wide range of media, Xu Bing creates installations that question the idea of communicating meaning through language, demonstrating how both meanings and written words can be easily manipulated. In fact, in awarding his 1999 "genius grant," the MacArthur Foundation cited his "originality, creativity, self-direction, and capacity to contribute importantly to society, particularly in printmaking and calligraphy." In playing with Chinese characters, Xu Bing typically explores the relationship between word and image--that is, the close relationship between painting and Chinese characters of a pictorial or semi-pictorial type, as he does in this and other paintings in the "Landscript" series. Exhibition History Recent Acquisitions, Part II: Building the Collection, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 06/19/2012 - 09/29/2012 Verification Level This record was created from historic documentation and may not have been reviewed by a curator; it may be inaccurate or incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu