Listening to the Qin
attributed to Tang Yin (Chinese, 1470–1523)
late 1400s–early 1500s
- Medium
- hanging scroll; ink and light color on silk
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Overall with knobs: 118 x 45 cm (46 7/16 x 17 11/16 in.); Painting: 35.8 x 29.1 cm (14 1/8 x 11 7/16 in.)
- Culture
- China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Chinese Art
- Credit line
- Gift of Herbert F. Leisy in memory of his wife, Helen Stamp Leisy
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
The painting alludes to a legendary incident from the life of Ji Kang 嵇康 (AD 223–262), a guqin player who belonged to a group of 3rd-century eccentric intellectuals. Ji Kang is known as the author of a Guangling San (廣陵散; Melody from Guangling), a composition for the guqin so haunting that it aroused spirits to visit him. The painting depicts the moment when one of the spirits––disguised as a human––is helped by another to emerge from the ground, while others are drawn to the musician playing in his cottage under the full moon.
