Album of Landscapes and Calligraphy for Liu Songfu

Xugu · Qing dynasty (1644–1911), 1895/96

Medium

Album of 25 leaves; ink and light color on paper

Original size

Each leaf: 30.5 × 36.3 cm (12 × 14 1/4 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Impressionism

This album of landscapes and calligraphy, created by Xugu in the final years of his life, reflects the quiet intensity that defines his most personal work — spare compositions where ink and pale washes hold more silence than mark. Xugu (1824–1896) was a Buddhist monk and one of the leading painters of the Shanghai School, a loose circle of late Qing artists who combined classical Chinese traditions with a bold, individualistic sensibility. Where contemporaries favoured lush, expressive brushwork, Xugu cultivated restraint — his landscapes built from angular, abbreviated strokes that feel almost skeletal, yet alive with atmosphere. This album, dedicated to his friend Liu Songfu, showcases that economy across 25 leaves, pairing image with inscription in the gift-album tradition common among literati of the period. Xugu was notably reclusive for a Shanghai artist, reportedly reluctant to part with his paintings and largely self-sufficient in his monastic life — which makes a personal album like this one a rare, intimate record of friendship. The hand-painted oil reproduction translates the delicate tonal range of Xugu's ink and light colour into a medium that preserves the contemplative mood of the original, bringing each brushed landscape into fine detail you can appreciate at close range.