# Beggars and Street Characters

- By: Zhou Chen (Chinese, c. 1450–c. 1536)
- Date: 1516
- Medium: Handscroll; ink and light color on paper
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: Overall: 31.9 x 244.5 cm (12 9/16 x 96 1/4 in.)
- Culture: China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
- Credit line: John L. Severance Fund
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/1964.94)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/cma/1964.94/1964.94_web.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Zhou Chen from Suzhou provides rare depictions of impoverished people that once filled the city’s markets and streets. Despite Suzhou’s prosperity, its rapid growth polarized society, including the wealthy and those who had deserted their farmlands, who were without homes, unemployed, or sick. Amid these are figures who inspire fear rather than empathy. The painting may thus be informed by local practices at the end of the lunar year, in which street beggars, in exchange for food or money, would dress up like ghosts and demons to drive out evil forces.