Album of Seasonal Landscapes1668
Throughout his lifetime, Xiao Yuncong visited Nanjing and Yangzhou, cities embedded in the fertile and water-rich Jiangnan region, as reflected in his paintings. More about this work
About this work
Throughout his lifetime, Xiao Yuncong visited Nanjing and Yangzhou, cities embedded in the fertile and water-rich Jiangnan region, as reflected in his paintings. Xiao painted from nature, and his landscapes are informed by the seasons and his travels, as well as by his experience as a print designer. Xiao’s fresh, light colors continue to appear in later Shanghai school paintings. This album was formerly in the collection of Li Yufen in Yangzhou and then owned by Wu Hufan in Shanghai. While the artist impressed his seal consistently below his poetic inscriptions in the upper parts of the composition, the red seals on the margins and in the lower corners of the paintings are impressions by the album’s previous owners.
Text from the Cleveland Museum of Art.
How it was made
- Album leaf
- A page from an album, meant to be held and looked at closely, one opening at a time.
- Ink on paper
- Ink made from soot and animal glue, ground with water on an inkstone. A single brush can give a hair-fine line or a broad wash, and nothing can be corrected.
Xiao Yuncong
Chinese, 1596–1673
Xiao Yuncong was a painter from Wuhu in Anhui province who refused to serve the Qing after the fall of the Ming dynasty and lived as a loyalist recluse. He is regarded as the founder of the Gushu school of landscape painting, known for its dry, angular brushwork and crystalline rock forms. His designs for a woodblock-illustrated album of the scenery of Taiping prefecture, published in 1648, were widely influential.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Chinese painting
Ink and colour on silk and paper, from imperial courts to scholars' retreats.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Cleveland Museum of Art has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1955.302
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
- Type
- Painting
- Department
- Chinese Art
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
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