The Immortals

Rendered in a technique known as baimiao, line drawing in plain ink without color, this handscroll depicts a jovial country gathering. While the exact nature of the festivities is unspecified, the energetic, tremulous lines with which the garments of the figures are drawn—a style called zhanbi—is usually reserved for otherworldly beings. The use of this drawing manner imbues a youthful exuberance into this tipsy assemblage as well as suggesting a meeting of immortals. At the heart of the painting, which is read from right to left, is a circle of eight men, each with individualized, almost eccentric demeanors, engaged in joyous yet premature revelry—the musicians are only just arriving at the compound gate.

A passage from the Daoist philosophical classic, Zhuangzi (fourth and third century B.C.E.), which describes a meeting of three Daoist converts, captures the tenor of this blithe painting: "Who can join others without ‘joining with others’? Who can do something with others without ‘doing something with others’? Who can go up to heaven, wander the mists of mystery, dance in the Infinite, become oblivious of life, forever, without end? The three looked at each other and laughed. They felt no opposition in their hearts and thus became friends."