Art Institute of Chicago

Tea Drinking Under the Wutong Tree

Tang Yin 唐寅 (Chinese, 1470-1523)

Date

Ming dynasty (1369–1644), 1509

Medium

Handscroll; ink and slight color on paper

Culture

China

Department

Arts of Asia

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

Generations of Chinese intellectuals and Buddhist monks honed the practice of tea tasting into a high art form. The "bamboo stove" —a carrying case that contained a ceramic kettle used for heating water—was central to the process of tea preparation. This ingenious device, fanned by a servant in the center of this painting, was the subject of a poem by Wu Kuan (1435-1504), a close friend of Tang Yin. In this composition, Wu appears on a low platform with a teapot and a scroll by his side. He shared the tea ceremony with a Buddhist monk, while another servant draws fresh water from a nearby stream. Five years after Wu Kuan's death, Tang Yin executed this delicate vignette in the writer's memory. The first colophon was written by Zhu Yunming (1461-1527), a famous poet and calligrapher who exchanged tea-related verses with Mr. Wu. Such commemorative paintings provide poignant records of Chinese intellectual and cultured society.

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