Zude (surname unknown, active 16th or early 17th century)
Portrait of the Artist's Great-Granduncle Yizhai at the Age of Eighty-Five
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Dated 1561 or 1621 [ambigious Chinese term used for dating]
Hanging scroll, ink and color on silk
Inscribed by the artist
Portraits of monarchs for use in the state cult of ancestor worship have a long tradition in China, but the rise of private portraiture as a significant artistic genre arose only during the latter half of the sixteenth century, as a result of increased economic prosperity and a growing spirit of individualism.
This image epitomizes the late Ming genre of formal portraiture, in which the sitter is depicted frontally, with a realistically described face set atop a body that is largely concealed beneath the stylized folds of an engulfing robe. According to the inscription, the painting depicts the artist's relative Yizhai on the occasion of his eighty-fifth birthday. Unlike an "ancestor portrait," which was typically commissioned after a person's death and was therefore highly schematic, this portrait was painted from life. Nonetheless, the mode of representation is basically linear, with little use of shading to model facial features - a Western technique that was first introduced into China in the sixteenth century and did not become widespread until the mid-seventeenth century. Yizhai is depicted in an informal hat and robe, an indication that he either never held official rank or had adopted the costume of a gentleman living in retirement.
