Description
This rural scene presents typical activities of a New Year’s Day in which relatives and friends approach the house to convey their good wishes to the elders. Two boys in the courtyard light fire crackers, and servants in front of the main gate beat the gong to announce the guests. Inside the house, the hosts entertain their guests by offering hot wine and by writing New Year couplets to be hung on the gates welcoming the New Year. White cherry blossoms announce the spring. The water village at Stone Lake is characteristic of the Jiangnan region in southeast China. Born in Suzhou, the artist Li Shida may have even had his hometown in mind when he produced this painting.
Provenance
(Katsuhiro Kobayashi. Tokyo, Japan, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) (?–1980); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1980–)
Accession Number
1980.178
Medium
Album leaf; ink and light color on paper
Dimensions
Overall: 33.3 x 53 cm (13 1/8 x 20 7/8 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund
Tags
Painting Baroque (1600–1750) Ink Paper Chinese
Background & Context
Background Story
Li Shida (active late 16th-early 17th century) was a Chinese painter known for the literati paintings of the Ming dynasty that make him one of the accomplished painters of the Wu School literati tradition. New Year's Day in a Village at Stone Lake from 1609 depicts New Year's Day celebrations in a village at Stone Lake in the literati manner that distinguishes Li Shida's best work from the more formal painting of his contemporaries. The 1609 date places this in the late Ming period, when the tradition of literati painting was being continued by painters of the Wu School, and the New Year's village subject shows the continuity of Chinese vernacular life in the literati tradition.
Cultural Impact
New Year's Day in a Village at Stone Lake is important in the history of Chinese painting because it demonstrates the literati tradition of depicting vernacular village life in the late Ming period. The tradition of literati painting that depicted everyday Chinese village life—combining the literati manner with the subject of Chinese vernacular life—is one of the most important traditions in Chinese painting, and the 1609 painting shows how this tradition continued in the late Ming period.
Why It Matters
New Year's Day in a Village at Stone Lake is Li Shida's Ming literati painting: New Year's Day celebrations rendered in the literati manner of one of the accomplished painters of the Wu School. The 1609 painting shows the literati tradition of depicting vernacular village life that is one of the most important subjects in Chinese painting.
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