Album of Landscapes and Calligraphy for Liu Songfu

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

Medium

Album leaves; ink and 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 intimate album — painted by Xugu in the final year of his life — pairs spare, atmospheric landscapes with flowing calligraphy in the meditative tradition of Chinese literati art. Xugu was a Buddhist monk turned painter who became one of the leading figures of the late Qing Shanghai School. His landscapes are quietly unconventional: where earlier masters favoured dense, layered compositions, Xugu preferred open space, restrained ink washes, and a slightly melancholic stillness that feels deeply personal. The album format — multiple leaves gifted to a named recipient — was a common vehicle for intimate expression, and this one for Liu Songfu carries the unhurried quality of a painter working with full command and no need to impress. Xugu was also celebrated for his paintings of squirrels, goldfish, and plum blossoms, and that same economy of line and feeling for living things quietly threads through his landscapes. He died in 1896, the same year this album was completed, making it among his last known works. The hand-painted oil reproduction translates Xugu's delicate ink and colour washes into oils while preserving the tonal restraint and spatial calm that define the original — a considered interpretation of a work that rewards slow looking.