Views of Nanjing for Zhou Lianggong

This album depicts twelve sites in and around Nanjing, ranging from the festive Qinhuai pleasure district to the solemn tomb of the first Ming emperor. More than just famous locations, these are places laden with historical significance and cultural memory. For the recipient of the album, Zhou Lianggong, who lived through the violent overthrow of the Ming dynasty, these pictures would have called to mind experiences from a lost world—evenings with friends at Qinhuai, or commemoration rituals at the emperor’s mausoleum. Painting with a tattered brush, Hu Yukun infused his misty scenes with the sense of a place seen through the haze of memory.