Silent Poetry - Chinese Paintings in the Douglas Dillon Galleries - Winter 1981/82

Sep 28, 2026

Silent Poetry presents Chinese painting in the Douglas Dillon Galleries through a Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin issue (Winter 1981/82). It highlights the museum’s efforts to strengthen its Chinese painting holdings and describes the gallery’s impact on American study and appreciation. The publication also frames Chinese painting’s richness, complexity, and variety of subjects, artists, and major styles across roughly the eighth to eighteenth centuries.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages84

Reading Time2 h 9 min

AccessFree to download

Director's Note

The Museum’s Chinese Painting Collection and Galleries

Visitors’ Experience and Published Works

Chinese Painting’s Relationship to Writing

The Metropolitan MuseumofArt SILENTPOETRY Chinese Paintings in the Douglas Dillon Galleries by Wen Fong and Maxwell K. Hearn TheMetropolitanMuseumof Art This publication is dedicated to Phyllis Dillon,whose love of and devotion to Chinese painting have doneso much to make the Museum's collection outstanding. The Metropolitan Museum of Art BulletinVolume XXXIX,Number 3(ISSN 0026-1521) Winter 1981/82 Published quarterly copyright o 1982 by The Metropoitan Museum of Art,Fith Avenue and 82nd Street,New York,N.Y.10028.Second-classpostage paid at New York,N.Y.and Additional Mailing Offices.Subscriptions $14.00 a year.Single copies $3.75.Sent free to Museum membersFour weeks'notice required for change of address.Back issues available on microfilm,from University Microffilms,313 N.First Street,Ann ArborMichigan.Volumes I-XXVIII (1905-1942)available as a clothbound reprintset or as individual yearly volumes from Arno Press,3 Park Avenue,NewYork,N.Y.10016,or from the Museum,Box 255,Gracie Station,New York,N.Y.10028.Photographs in this issue by WalterJ.F.Yee,MetropolitanMuseum Photograph Studio.General Manager of Publications:John P.O'Neill.Editor in Chief of the Bulletin:Joan Holt.Associate Editor:Joanna EkmanDesign:Alvin Grossman. On the cover:Detail of Finches and Bamboo,by Emperor Hui-tsung(see figure 7) # Director's Note One of the most challenging aspects of TheMetropolitan Museum of Art's master plan for thepermanent installation of its collections has beenthe strengthening of its woefully inadequate hold-ings in Chinese painting.Although it is acknowl-edged as one of the world's great artistictraditions,Chinese painting has never been aneasy subject to master for Americans,so in-volved in the art of the West.Only a very fewnotable collections of Chinese painting havebeen formed in the United States,each onelargely a result of unusual opportunities andspecial interests.The holdings of the Museum ofFine Arts,Boston,are the legacy of commercialtrading ventures between New England and theFar East during the late nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries.The Freer Gallery of Art,Washington,D.C.,embodies the interests ofCharles Freer,whose passion for Chinese paint-ing grew out of his earlier love of Japonisme asexpressed in the art of Whistler.During WorldWar Il and in the following decades,the devotionand exceptional knowledge of two connoisseur-directors,Laurence Sickman and Sherman Lee,enabled the Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum,Kansas City,Missouri,and the Cleveland Mu-seum of Art to acquire outstanding collections ofChinese paintings. At the Metropolitan Museum,however,earlyefforts to collect Chinese painting were half-hearted,and the artistic traditions of Asia haveremained until recently largely underrepresented in the Museum's encyclopedic collections.It istherefore with a keen sense of personal pleasureand satisfaction that I have witnessed—in fewerthan ten years—the growth of the collection ofChinese paintings at the Museum into one com-parable in quality,if not yet in quantity,to theMetropolitan's famed holdings in such other fieldsas European painting. The force behind this remarkable achievementhas been the Honorable C.Douglas Dillon,Chair-man of the Board of Trustees,whose wisdom andfarsightedness have given tremendous impetus tothe creation of a wing for the comprehensive ex-hibition of Far Eastern art at the Metropolitan.Henot only underwrote the construction of the newChinese painting galleries that bear his name butalso made substantial contributions of works ofart.His generous support of the Department ofFar Eastern Art and his fruitful collaboration withits staff,including the authors of this text—Pro-fessor Wen Fong,Special Consultant for FarEastern Affairs,and Assistant Curator Maxwell K.Hearn—has resulted in a remarkable record ofprogress that sets an enviable example.Most im-portantly,the establishment of the Douglas DillonGalleries of Chinese painting around the

FAQs

What is the focus of the Silent Poetry issue?

The issue focuses on Chinese painting in the Douglas Dillon Galleries, emphasizing the richness of the works on view and their significance for study and appreciation in the United States.

Why did the Metropolitan Museum strengthen its Chinese painting holdings?

The text explains that early efforts were half-hearted and that Asian artistic traditions had been underrepresented, prompting later growth into a collection comparable in quality to other major fields.

What does the publication say about the relationship between Chinese painting and writing?

It states that brush-work underlies both painting and calligraphy, and that pictorial and verbal modes became integral and inseparable within individual works of art.

Sep 28, 2026

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