The Asia Society is currently featuring a show entitled “The Artful Recluse: Painting, Poetry, and Politics in Seventeenth-Century China.” The show features paintings by Ming loyalists produced during the early Qing.
“The paintings in this exhibition offer a fascinating glimpse into the private world of these scholar-painters. Deeply affected by the crises of their times, many sought solace in the ancient ideal of withdrawal or reclusion. They retreated either literally or figuratively from serving a court filled with treacherous intrigue to private lives devoted to the time-honored consolations and pleasures found in nature, art, and learning.”
The show was reviewed by Holland Cotter in the New York Times on March 14, 2013.