# Flight of Geese

- By: Artist unknown (Chinese, 14th century?)
- Date: Late Yuan (1279–1368) or early Ming dynasty (1368-1644)
- Medium: Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: 64.8 × 38.1 cm (25 1/2 × 15 in.)
- Culture: China
- Credit line: Gift of The Orientals
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/79716)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/d134ce30-2836-d668-8c73-a5e4fbb2da89/full/!1920,1080/0/default.jpg
- Who can see it: Little Ones profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

This landscape is precisely rendered in a detailed manner that blends the Song dynasty (960-1279) tradition with newer stylistic elements. It also combines standard motifs of the landscape and flower-and-bird genres. Scattered across the foreground are mandarin ducks, lotus, and bamboo, a traditional grouping drawn from flower-and-bird painting of the Song dynasty. But the trees growing from the right side of the same area are treated in a contemporary, early fourteenth century manner. These trees lead the eye upward into the middle distance, where geese taking flight over rushes signify autumn, a seasonal reference confirmed by the bare treetops. The touches of color used to highlight various forms in the foreground, and the blue-green coloring applied to some of the rocks, are both archaizing features that emulate painting of the Tang dynasty (618-907). In the background are monumental mountain forms, convincingly portrayed as if shrouded in mist, derived from the Song landscape tradition.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0