As we looked at different examples of art made in China and Japan in the 17th century this week, my favorite work of art was from our class lecture called Poet on a Mountaintop painted by Shen Zhou. While I was young, I lived in China. Every summer, my grandparents would send me to a summer camp to learn traditional ink painting. Among all of the artists, Shen Zhou was my favorite artist during the Ming Dynasty not only because of his delicate style of art but also because of his subtle use of color. From the lecture on Monday, we learned that the main themes of those traditional Chinese ink paintings would be landscapes, bird-and-flower paintings, and portraits. Shen Zhou is also known for that. In the Poet on the mountaintop, the main theme is that a poet was standing on the top of the mountain, looking at a distant place, and seeking inspiration or spiritual enlightenment. In ancient China, there were many poets who would do the same thing, standing on the top of the mountain, seeking inner peace. They believe that all of these could be found by getting close to nature and standing at the highest place they could be. It reminds me of the idea of Global Baroque because the main theme of this work of art is a person standing on the top of a mountain. I believe this is also a common theme in western arts and paintings during that time period. One example I could think of would be Wanderer above the Sea of Fog created by Caspar David Friedrich, in which a man was standing on a rock and gazing out into the sea fog. Both the Poet on the Mountaintop and Wanderer above the Sea of Fog could be related to the romantic movement as well.Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, Caspar David Friedrich
