BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA.- The Berkeley Art Museum presents "Masterworks of Chinese Painting - In Pursuit of Mists and Clouds", on view through May 26, 2002. Preeminent scholar of Chinese art, UC Berkeley Professor Emeritus James Cahill, has written that the Chinese painting tradition corresponds in magnitude to the "awesome antiquity and continuity of Chinese civilization." From the thirteenth century in particular, landscape painting achieved remarkable depth and focus. The artist's practiced and refined brush began to reveal a tale of an intimately observed living universe, informed by tradition and the intellect, in which the imagination could dwell.

Masterworks of Chinese Painting: In Pursuit of Mists and Clouds presents a stunning panorama of distinguished Chinese paintings amassed over nearly fifty years by Professor Cahill and the Cahill family. These collections, known historically as the Ching Yüan Chai Collection, are arguably among the finest in the western United States, representing virtually every period of Chinese painting over the last 900 years. With the assistance of a generous grant by an anonymous Bay Area foundation, BAM/PFA has recently acquired key works from these extraordinary sources.

The Ching Yüan Chai and Cahill family collections consist of works from the Sung, Yüan, Ming, and Ch'ing dynasties, including major figure paintings and a selection of botanical and animal subjects. The greatest strength, however, is landscape paintings. Considered the highest category of painting in China, the landscape embodies the ideals of the Confucian scholar. This is the area of Chinese art in which we find the most daring experiments, the greatest developments, and the most intense art historical scrutiny.