Drinking in the Moonlight
Ma Yuan (Chinese, c. 1150–after 1255)
late 1100s–early 1200s
- Medium
- Album leaf; ink on silk
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Painting: 24.5 x 25 cm (9 5/8 x 9 13/16 in.); Overall: 67.6 x 39.2 cm (26 5/8 x 15 7/16 in.)
- Culture
- China, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Chinese Art
- Credit line
- Bequest of Mrs. A. Dean Perry
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
Once the moon rises and the wine is finished, perhaps the reclined tipsy gentleman will return to the stone table, where ink, paper, and brush can be seen. For moon enthusiasts in Hangzhou, there was a site named Yue Yan, or Moon Cliff, behind the imperial precincts on Mount Fenghuang. With its geographical features of receding craggy rocks leading to the framed full moon, there is good reason to believe that the scene depicts this specific site.
The association of this painting with Ma Yuan is stylistically based. However, the brushwork accords more with the aesthetic approach of his son, Ma Lin.
