Landscape Album in Various Styles: The Stream of Wuling

Description

At age 68, Zha Shibiao painted this album with seasonal landscapes in various styles. Painted in fresh colors and wet strokes, all depict typical scenes of Jiangnan.

The mention of Wuling in the inscription signals the “Peach Blossom Spring,” but Zha Shibiao purposefully left out all the accepted iconography for that story: a lone fisherman, cave entrance, and village of hermits. Instead, two men in separate boats are engaged in conversation. Could they be talking about the way to the Peach Blossom Spring, or could one of them be that fisherman blessed by his unintended visit but no longer able to find his way back again? Around them unfolds a lyrical landscape, with willows along the shores, an empty pavilion, a wide-open lake surface, and endless distant hills.

Provenance

Ma Yueguan 馬曰琯 [1688–1755]; Ding Huikang 丁惠康 [1868/1869–about 1918] and Gu Anmi 顧安宓; (C. T. Loo & Co., New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) (?-1955); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1955-)

Landscape Album in Various Styles: The Stream of Wuling

Zha Shibiao

1684

Accession Number

1955.37.4

Medium

album leaf, ink and light color on paper

Dimensions

Overall: 29.9 x 39.4 cm (11 3/4 x 15 1/2 in.)

Classification

Painting

Museum

The Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, United States

Credit Line

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Severance A. Millikin