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Ink Flowers
Zhao Zhong (Chinese, second half of the 1300s)
1361
- Medium
- Handscroll; ink on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Overall: 31.8 x 153.2 cm (12 1/2 x 60 5/16 in.)
- Culture
- China, Yuan dynasty (1271–1368)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Chinese Art
- Credit line
- John L. Severance 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 Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
Zhao Zhong's flowers, each paired with a poem, echo the fine-style colored flowers of the academic tradition, but instead he used only ink. Fine lines define the contours of each plant, as well as the veins within each petal and leaf. Careful ink washes give subtle modeling to the forms.
The combination of lily, narcissus, and peony is unusual as the three belong to no known seasonal or symbolic system popular in the fourteenth century. Zhao’s medical training may have influenced the selection. Powdered lilies, for example, were prescribed to dispel grief, while the bark of tree peony roots was used as a treatment for various blood disorders.
