Skip Navigation

Map of Distant Snowy Mountain Peaks (后山图之佘山雪霁)

Wang Tiande

Asian Art

Wang Tiande’s poetic landscape combines layers of xuan paper, Chinese ink, stele rubbings, and burn marks created by incense sticks. By manipulating traditional materials with innovative techniques, Wang reinterprets the past and creates a magical vision haunted by the impending ecological crisis. The format resembles a traditional Chinese hanging scroll. The main panel consists of at least two sheets of paper, layered on top of each other, with the lower inscribed with Chinese characters in black ink and the upper burned by the end of a long incense stick, typically used in Buddhist rituals but here in lieu of a paint brush. A third layer of paper at the bottom of the painting is a rubbing of a stone epitaph from the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), detailing the life achievements of an elite Confucian scholar. Wang’s radical use of materials and techniques transforms this seemingly traditional landscape and calligraphy into a fractured and disembodied image, conveying the fragile nature of Chinese historical traditions in China today. This painting continues Wang’s Digital Series; he has described his process as resembling that of “burning” information (or, in this case, layers of Chinese tradition) onto digital drives.
MEDIUM Ink, burn marks (from incense sticks), rubbing of stone stele inscription on xuan paper
DATES 2017
DIMENSIONS 79 1/2 × 28 1/8 in. (202 × 71.5 cm) frame: 88 1/2 × 35 1/4 × 2 1/2 in. (224.8 × 89.5 × 6.4 cm)  (show scale)
COLLECTIONS Asian Art
ACCESSION NUMBER 2018.43
CREDIT LINE Gift of Shandan Wu in honor of the new Chinese galleries
CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION Calligraphic characters and landscape depicting snowy distant mountain peaks executed in ink on xuan paper; calligraphic characters and landscape burned by sticks of incense into translucent paper; rubbing of stone stele inscription on xuan paper; the layered sheets constitute the painting.
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
CAPTION Wang Tiande (Chinese, born 1960). Map of Distant Snowy Mountain Peaks (后山图之佘山雪霁), 2017. Ink, burn marks (from incense sticks), rubbing of stone stele inscription on xuan paper, 79 1/2 × 28 1/8 in. (202 × 71.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Shandan Wu in honor of the new Chinese galleries, 2018.43. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: , 2018.43_PS9.jpg)
IMAGE overall, 2018.43_PS9.jpg., 2019
"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
RIGHTS STATEMENT © artist or artist's estate
Copyright for this work may be controlled by the artist, the artist's estate, or other rights holders. A more detailed analysis of its rights history may, however, place it in the public domain. The Museum does not warrant that the use of this work will not infringe on the rights of third parties. It is your responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions before copying, transmitting, or making other use of protected items beyond that allowed by "fair use," as such term is understood under the United States Copyright Act. For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
RECORD COMPLETENESS
Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and we welcome any additional information you might have.
Wang Tiande (Chinese, born 1960). <em>Map of Distant Snowy Mountain Peaks (后山图之佘山雪霁)</em>, 2017. Ink, burn marks (from incense sticks), rubbing of stone stele inscription on xuan paper, 79 1/2 × 28 1/8 in. (202 × 71.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Shandan Wu in honor of the new Chinese galleries, 2018.43. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: , 2018.43_PS9.jpg)