Painting Apart from the World: Monks and Scholars of the Ming and Qing Dynasties

Shown in Europe for the fiˆrst time, these paintings and calligraphies were created by the greatest masters of the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1912) dynasties. Before being donated to the Hong Kong Museum of Art in 2018, these works were patiently brought together by the collector Ho Iu-kwong (1907–2006) who, following Chinese tradition, named the collection Chih Lo Lou, “Pavilion of Perfect Bliss”.

The works presented in Painting Apart from the World were created at a pivotal moment in Chinese history, between the mid-fifteenth and the early eighteenth centuries, a period of significant historic rupture that resulted in a dynastic shift. During these three centuries of grandeur and misery, the timeless aspirations of sages and poets to withdraw from the world to live in the forests and mountains took on new meanings under the painters’ brushes. This was the case for painters Shitao (1642–1707) and Badashanren (1626–1705), members of the deposed imperial family, who through donning the monastic habit, made the temples their refuge and the mountains their source of inspiration.

This exhibition is jointly organized by the Cernuschi Museum, Paris Museum of Asian Art and the Hong Kong Museum of Art.