River Village in a Rainstorm, by Lu Wenying, c. 1480–1507
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River Village in a Rainstorm

Lu Wenying (Chinese)

c. 1480–1507

Medium
Hanging scroll; ink and slight color on silk
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
Painting: 170.5 x 103.4 cm (67 1/8 x 40 11/16 in.); Overall with knobs: 279.6 x 134.3 cm (110 1/16 x 52 7/8 in.)
Culture
China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
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

In this scene, windswept rain pelting a village captures the power of nature in a masterful composition.

Lü Wenying from Zhejiang served as a court painter during the Hongzhi era (1488–1505). Hardly known, with few remaining works, he is considered a Zhe school painter who followed the style of the Southern Song academy. Zhe school painters, named after the province of Zhejiang, transformed the poetic scenery of the Southern Song artists into dramatic, large-scale views. Active in the same region with frequent monsoon rains in the summer season, artists were familiar with outbreaks of rain and storms.