"Learning to See on Home Turf" @wsj

New York

The most exciting shows are often those that break new ground or introduce the unfamiliar. “Chinese Gardens: Pavilions, Studios, Retreats” does neither. We expect to see water swirling amid craggy rocks, mountains dissolving into mist, robed figures lingering under gnarled pine trees, birds perched on a flowering branch—and we do. And if we take the time, we really do. By limiting the selection to a single theme, the head of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Asian department, Maxwell Hearn, offers us an irresistible opportunity to explore ways of seeing Chinese art and to do so with almost 100 works from a premier collection: the Met’s own.

The texts and audio prove effective allies in understanding context and ferreting out political, social and religious references. Take the 10th- to early 12th-century “Palace Banquet,” the oldest painting in the show. It depicts the imperial women’s quarters as a harmonious setting for an outdoor celebration. But why is a woman standing by a slumbering form, clapping her hands? And why are attendants about to open the gate? The allusion, the label tells us, is to an eighth-century consort famous for sleeping all day and burning the midnight oil with her lover, the emperor. When an uprising threatened the empire, courtiers thought the emperor ought to reserve his energies for governing and forced him to execute his consort. This happy palace scene thus doubles as a warning against rulers placing affairs of the heart above those of state.

Yet there is the danger of getting so carried away deciphering content that we forget to experience these works as art. Indeed, one of the show’s greatest pleasures is its variety of forms, each inviting a distinct approach. The verticality of hanging scrolls like “Palace Banquet” guides the eye from bottom up. We stand outside looking in, slowly piecing the scene and story together. It is similar to the way we approach “Returning Home Through the Snow” (c. 1455), except that in Dai Jin’s hanging scroll we enter the picture through a single figure. We take in his downcast eyes and furrowed brow and, in the artist’s quick brushstrokes, we feel the winter wind whipping his thin robe. As our eye moves up to tree branches outlined in snow, to an expanse of empty sky and distant bare mountains, the chill of this man’s lonely walk engulfs us.

By contrast, other hanging scrolls feature tiny, anonymous figures that draw us inside the scene. We climb the mountain path that stretches before them, glide along the twisting river, brush against low-hanging branches, feel our heart rate slow as we marvel at the scenery. This is similar to the way we experience horizontal handscrolls. One of the oldest forms of painting in China, they are meant to be unfurled from right to left. Short scrolls can be viewed in their entirety, but the long ones—of which the show offers fine examples—invite us to journey through them in stages, each about an arm’s length.

Since no museum could ever allow us to actually do that, we have to emulate the experience by blocking our view (hands up like blinders on a horse works—don’t worry, nobody is looking). When we experience Zhao Cangyun’s “Liu Chen and Ruan Zhao Entering the Tiantai Mountains” (late 13th-early 14th century) this way, we discover just how clever Zhao’s composition is. Like all handscrolls, his begins with an expanse of beautiful silk. This is the “moat,” whose purpose is akin to that of sorbet between courses—it cleanses our mind of whatever occupied it before. First comes a block of text, which a label beneath helpfully translates. It relates the tale of two men who set off to gather medicinal herbs; we next see two elderly gentlemen, a basket to the ready. For two more scenes, text precedes image, priming us for the sight of “green peaks, lofty and contorted” and a stream in need of crossing. We watch the men wade in—then, suddenly, in the next scene, two beautiful women appear on the opposite bank. This time, Zhao has delayed the explanatory text, so we share the men’s surprise.

This way of engaging handscrolls also brings out the beauty and power of nonnarrative paintings. A seemingly repetitive composition like Wang Yuanqi’s 1711 “Wangchuan Villa” morphs into discrete scenes of startling variety. Meanwhile Fang Congyi’s 14th-century “Cloudy Mountains” begins with a geology so vibrant it seems to still be shifting. Yet as we move forward, diagonal lines propel us on a journey that paradoxically builds in intensity even as the landscape’s details dissolve into mist. By the time we reach the expanse of space at the end of the painting, some deep part of us registers what our eyes can’t see: that there is form in this emptiness.

On a lighter note, we can’t help but imagine how the rhythmic waving of a fan might animate trees and birds painted on its surface. Or visualize how the play of light might bring alive deep carvings on a wood brush-holder or ivory table screen. Or contemplate how revealing the album format can be. Wen Zhengming’s ostensibly modest “Garden of the Inept Administrator” (1551) forces viewers to savor, page by page, his poetry, calligraphy and painting. The Met even provides the perfect setting for such musings: the adjoining Astor Court, modeled after a 17th-century Chinese garden, complete with mock pavilion, greenery and evocative rocks.