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Squirrels on the Chestnut Tree
Ge Shuying (Chinese, active 1300s)
1300s
- Medium
- Hanging scroll; ink on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Painting: 97 x 39.4 cm (38 3/16 x 15 1/2 in.); Overall with knobs: 181.6 x 58 cm (71 1/2 x 22 13/16 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
One squirrel perches on a branch nibbling a chestnut, while the other on ground is approaching a fallen chestnut. The painter used fine, short staccato strokes to simulate the animal’s soft fur, while the tree is depicted with broader wet strokes in a rougher manner.
Ge Shuying is known for his depictions of squirrels in a monochrome style characterized by crisp, decisive brushstrokes. He may have been a Chan (Zen) priest-painter, or perhaps a Daoist painter, active in the Hangzhou region of eastern China. From there his works spread to Japan, where squirrel paintings gained the attention of Japanese collectors.
