I rediscovered a favorite painting.

[mandru]

I've tried many times unsuccessfully over the last deecade to relocate a good clear depiction online of an ancient Chinese painting called "Monkey and Cats by the artist Yi Yuanji or sometimes known simply as Yuan-Chi.  I wanted to replace a wallpaper that was lost when a former computer circa 1999 unexpectedly took the great canvas nap staying down for the 10 count and never recovered.

Unfortunately I didn't have the name of the artwork or the artist to help zero in of my objective until a random walk through Google revealed both this morning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yi_Yuanji

The first painting at the top right of the above link (though somewhat truncated horizontally) is the treasure I was searching for.  Now wallpaper restored, every time I turn my computer on I spend a moment admiring and contemplating on this picture while thinking to myself "He LUUB dat Kitty!" 

[Art Blade]

what a beautiful depiction of a cat's face, the one to the right. I understand why you wanted to get this back

[PZ]

 

[BinnZ]

I spent some time watching the picture. Normally I wouldn't even take a closer look at it, since the colours and the composition aren't grabbing my attention, but enlarging it to the full screen I realised there was plenty to see and, although subtle, there is an intriguing composition in it. I found out quickly that the monkey is facing the watcher, while both cats look at the monkey. The monkey is trapped, with a rope tied to a wooden pole. He's being held, likely by humans and can't decide freely to where he wants to go. He holds one of the cats, kittens I suppose. Trapped. The other one looks worried I think, not sure if it's a game or trouble.
The tension I feel is between me, the watcher, likely the person who holds the monkey, the monkey itself and both little kittens. Nothing is for certain, and we are all trapped in the moment.

Thanks for sharing

[mandru]

I see the monkey as held by the collar but for the moment captured in this painting the kitten he is holding is it's precious treasure and a joy that transcends the monkey's being leashed.

Being painted by an artist who lived from the years 1000 to 1064 makes this particular piece almost 1000 years old.  I am sure the colors used have faded to some extent.  Even the red ribbon collars worn by both kittens which contrast the monkey's brown leather leash.

Its like a color code between collars showing who has limited movement and who is free to roam.

I also like that there is no background or surrounding clutter and the principal members of the portrayed moment are forced into the full foreground of this compositional arrangement.

[BinnZ]

I agree, it is strong in its simpleness. Interesting indeed how long those colours, hence the paint used, stays pure and recognizable. Making paint was a true masters w0#k back then; people had to extract their pigments from nature, or minerals, usually quite complicated to get and often poisonous. Many painters have gone mad or died early because of the poisonous materials they were working with day in day out.
An interesting example is lead white. A very opaque white pigment that is made out of lead, vinegar and droppings. These materials were put together in a jar and left for several months. The vinegar damps would make the lead acetate. That would react with the poop and result in lead carbonate, which is the opaque white powder used to make many many paints. It's known for its effects on the durability of good colours. We now know that paintings made with pigments based on lead white from more than 1600 years ago are still very colourful. The material was also very cheap, compared to most other colours and pigments.
The downside of this wonderful pigment was the fact that the poor people who had to produce it, suffered the most horrible health issues due to lead poisoning, resulting in an early death.
Many cultures through history have used lead white in all sorts of face paint, because it was a wonderful way of making your skin white and 'pure'. There's even a theory that the Shogun dynasty, that ruled for 300 years and quite suddenly came to a fall (1868), ended because of lead poisoning. Young mothers would paint their faces with it, and babies would be poisoned directly while drinking their mothers milk, resulting in heavy lead contamination and extremely high infant mortality. There were lead concentrations found in their bones that were 50 times higher than that of their parents.
People all over the world kept using lead white until even in the 20th century in all sorts of creams and proposedly he@lthy skin-care-products, imagine

If anyone is interested where I got my info from; Kassia St Clair, writer

[Art Blade]