Washing the White Elephant Chen Zi Chinese In both painting and calligraphy, Chen Zi followed the style of his father, Chen Hongshou (1598–1652). In imitating his father's painting, however, the son transformed the older Chen's subtly varied brush mannerisms into hardened conventions. In this scroll, done when Chen Zi was fifty years old, the exaggerated features of the figure and the hardened patterns of the drapery retain a sense of hoary interpretation of the subject of this painting comes from the Zhengshi moyuan, a catalogue of ink-cake designs, where a similar image is acco

Washing the White Elephant Chen Zi Chinese In both painting and calligraphy, Chen Zi followed the style of his father, Chen Hongshou (1598–1652). In imitating his father's painting, however, the son transformed the older Chen's subtly varied brush mannerisms into hardened conventions. In this scroll, done when Chen Zi was fifty years old, the exaggerated features of the figure and the hardened patterns of the drapery retain a sense of hoary interpretation of the subject of this painting comes from the Zhengshi moyuan, a catalogue of ink-cake designs, where a similar image is accompanied by a poem that suggests that "sweeping the elephant" (saoxiang, in Chinese) is a pun for a homophone that means "sweeping away an attachment to illusory images." Chen's patternized composition, which reflects the influence of woodblock print designs, and his caricaturelike treatment of the figures emphasize his rejection of outward appearance as a reliable indication of spiritual power. The monochrome palette and simplified archaistic drawing style further emphasize the painting's anti-illusionistic function. More concerned with artistic forms and effects than orthodox religious iconography, the painting is an appropriate expression of the kind of intellectualized involvement with Buddhism prevalent among the scholarly elite of Chen's Washing the White Elephant 36120

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