Luohan Meditating in a Tree

Luohan Meditating in a Tree is a painting by Gai Qi, a Chinese artist from the Qing dynasty. He painted it in 1821, in the first year of the Daoguang emperor. It is a hanging scroll, so it is long and thin, about 111 cm tall and 32.5 cm wide. He made it with ink on paper, and it is kept today at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The painting shows a luohan, which is a Buddhist holy man who found inner peace. He is sitting in a tree and meditating. Gai Qi is mostly known for painting beautiful women and for the pictures he made for the novel Dream of the Red Chamber. So this painting shows a different side of him, a calm and spiritual one. Gai Qi also wrote a short poem on the scroll and signed it. The poem says the holy man uses the clouds as his water and the tree as his house. The spring wind comes by itself, and he just looks at the green around him. He eats peach flowers and mushrooms. It is high and cold in the deep mountains. A bell rings one time, and the evening sun leaves no shadow. He smells a soft sweet smell of incense, and he is already deep in meditation. I think the painting is about living simply and keeping the mind quiet. The Met received it as a gift in 2024 from Jane DeBevoise and the Calello Family.