Wu Hong (? –  after 1727?), Landscapes in the style of old masters, Qing dynasty (1644 – 1911), dated 1727, album of 12 leaves
Gong Xian (ca. 1619 – 1689), Marsh landscape, Ming (1368 – 1644) / Qing dynasty, dated 16, album with eight leaves
© Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Asiatische Kunst / Jürgen Liepe
Traditional Chinese landscape painting featuring a river, a house, and a traveler among trees.
Black-and-white landscape with mountains, trees, houses, and a small object in the foreground.

The turbulent transition between the Ming and Qing dynasties was a period of scientific curiosity and engagement with the material world. Whether Ming loyalists who feared for their existence and expressed themselves through bleak, peopleless landscapes, professional painters who catered to the new market of the emerging middle class, or orthodox court painters whose works followed the tradition of literati painting and were intended to please the emperor: the long 17th century encouraged artists to produce bold new works.

不時則不雋。不窮新而極變則不時
If something is not contemporary (shi), it is not outstanding. It is not contemporary if it does not exhaust the new (xin) and transform [style] to the extreme.
Yuan Hongdao (1568 – 1610)

Curator
Birgitta Augustin curated the exhibition.

This temporary presentation of the Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin is part of the permanent exhibition of Ethnological Collections and Asian Art at the Humboldt Forum.

e Xin (active ca. 1640–1673), painter and Gong Xian (ca. 1619 – 1689), calligrapher, Qing dynasty (1644 – 1911), album with eight leaves
© Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Asiatische Kunst / Jürgen Liepe
© Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss / Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Asiatische Kunst und Ethnologisches Museum, Fotos: Claudia Obrocki; Martin Franken; Philipp Jester / Jens Blank
Visit the collections on the 2nd and 3rd floor
In the Humboldt Forum's foyer there is a 17 meter high media tower, called "cosmograph". It gives visitors comprehensive information about their visit and can transform into an art and light installation.
© SHF / David von Becker
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