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Birds Gather under the Spring Willow
Yin Hong (Chinese, c. 1430-c. 1500)
late 1400s–early 1500
- Medium
- hanging scroll, ink and color on silk
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Painting: 240 x 195.5 cm (94 1/2 x 76 15/16 in.); Overall with knobs: 280 x 204 cm (110 1/4 x 80 5/16 in.)
- Culture
- China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Chinese Art
- Credit line
- Purchase from the J. H. Wade 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
This scroll depicts a spring scene with all kinds of birds, including one peacock with a hen among peonies. The painting is one of four surviving works by Yin Hong bearing his signature and seals. Some scholars debate whether this work depicts the theme “One Hundred Birds admiring the Phoenix,” a metaphor for human society presenting an idealized hierarchy under imperial rule; other scholars argue that peafowls, as exotic birds not native to China, would not be depicted to represent the emperor.
This large painting might have been hung in a palace hall and may have been part of a set depicting the four seasons.
