Landscape with Woodcutters Returning Home, 1200s
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Landscape with Woodcutters Returning Home

1200s

Medium
hanging scroll, ink on silk
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
Image: 124.5 x 58.3 cm (49 x 22 15/16 in.); Overall: 203.2 x 81.3 cm (80 x 32 in.)
Culture
China, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279)
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art, Chinese Art
Credit line
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. 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 late Song dynasty Chinese Chan Buddhist temples, paintings of landscapes, animals, or plants frequently took the place of deities. This hanging scroll features the humble life of woodcutters in nature an is in keeping with the Chan emphasis on simplicity and on the spiritual benefits of manual labor. executed in broad, quickly applied washes and punctuated by dark dots and texture strokes, the work is inscribed by Xuzhou Pudu, a priest at Wanshou temple near the Southern Song capital at Lin'an (modern Hangzhou).