# Old Pine Tree

- By: Wen Zhengming (Chinese, 1470–1559)
- Date: late 1530s
- Medium: handscroll; ink on paper
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: Painting: 28 x 139.3 cm (11 x 54 13/16 in.); Overall: 29.3 x 596.9 cm (11 9/16 x 235 in.)
- Culture: China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
- Credit line: Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/1964.43)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1964.43/1964.43_web.jpg
- Who can see it: Little Ones profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Here the natural appearance of a gnarled and vine-entangled pine has been transformed into a rhythmic abstraction of brushstrokes and ink tonalities, with unifying opposites—opening and closing, rising and falling—that provide the design across the horizontal scroll. The artist's inscription reads: "The force of change beyond restraint; / The dragon's whiskers are likened to a forest of spears."