River Village: Fisherman's Joy

Date: c. 1302–3
Medium: Fan painting mounted as album leaf; ink and color on silk
Dimensions: Overall: 28.6 x 30 cm (11 1/4 x 11 13/16 in.)
Country / context: China
Movement / tradition: Literati painting · Source ↗
Collection: The Cleveland Museum of Art
Pathway: Chinese painting ↗

FROM THE MUSEUM

The artist of this blue-green–style landscape, Zhao Mengfu, was a southerner, versed in all fields of literati pursuits, such as calligraphy and connoisseurship. A princeling of the defeated Southern Song dynasty, he was nevertheless successfully recruited by Khubilai Khan to the Mongol court in the new capital, Dadu (modern Beijing), in 1286. This painting combines a distinctively southern flat watery landscape combined with features of the northern landscape tradition, notably the spiky trees, branches, and rough-surfaced rocks.

Collection text · The Cleveland Museum of Art · CC0

A MOMENT TO LOOK

Start with what you can see: shapes, surface, colour and scale. How might the listed materials affect the way this object was made and experienced?

Looking prompt · an invitation to observe, not a historical interpretation.

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