Autumn Mountains 秋山圖
Wen Zhengming (Chinese, 1470-1559)
Ming dynasty (1368–1644), early 16th century 明朝
- Medium
- Handscroll; ink on gold-flecked paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 32 × 489 cm (12 9/16 × 192 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- China
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Asia
- Credit line
- Kate S. Buckingham Endowment Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
The eminent scholar-painter Wen Zhengming mastered disciplined but unassertive brushwork to create subtly powerful and often poignant compositions. Ascending a steep mountain path, a man with a walking staff is the solitary inhabitant of this landscape; desolate huts and clustered groves of thin trees are his only neighbors. Horizontal strokes accent the densely layered and partially shadowed mountain contours – an intriguing blend or representational form and surface texture.
A poetic colophon by Shao Bao (1460-1527) is inscribed after the painting: In the Dao of painting, spring mountains are admired, But one can sympathize even more with autumn mountains. High winds overwhelm strong trees, Heavy rains - one can really see the springs. Tallow and plum trees are thin, Maple groves and apricot [trees] fade and groan. Yet when winter follows this, The pine and cypress are just as before." (translation by Stephen Little)
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
