Teleport Me!

In Taipei at the National Palace Museum: Painting Reunited, through September 5th, 2011.

Click the link above to read all about my favorite painting of all time in the world. You can play with a section of it on the Museum's home page, but only a small section. The desire to see the scroll in its entirety persists. Here at Raggedy Ann's Foot, enter the top image from bottom right, travel down the images from right to left and exit the bottom image at the lower left. It's a bumpy ride, I know, but enjoy the "hemp stroke" mountains and dotting techniques that make this scroll a masterpiece!

When I traveled to Taiwan for the second time, in 2005, with the naive hope of seeing the painting, the closest I got was an oversized cloth-covered catalogue of the Museum's Yuan Dynasty collection. I bought it immediately and dragged the book to China, where in the cold December month copied the scroll, segment by segment, from the book to sheets of rice paper. It did not fulfill my desire to see the scroll in its entirety, but I felt much closer to the composition, and learned how Huang rotates the space, taking us in front of and then behind the rising mountains, offsetting the peaks with lowlands and reefs. Back in the US I lugged the book to a Kinko's, photocopied the segments and pasted them together. Wherever I go, I take the mini-scroll with me, some pages blacker than others, dented now with the times it's been rolled and moved. Still, I yearn to see the painting as conceived by my teacher and mentor, Huang Gongwang, a Yuan Dynasty great. Teleport me.