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Road to Shu
Yuan Yao (Chinese, active mid-1700s)
1743
- Medium
- Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Painting only: 187 x 256.5 cm (73 5/8 x 101 in.); Overall with knobs: 270 x 284 cm (106 5/16 x 111 13/16 in.)
- Culture
- China, Qing dynasty (1644–1911), Qianlong reign (1736–95)
- 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
- 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
Few works by the Yuan workshops in Yangzhou present a continuous composition of such monumental scale as this hanging scroll. Road to Shu (in Sichuan province) depicts the trade of goods over long distances and through mountainous terrain. Busy travelers lead mules over footbridges, mountain paths wind along steep slopes, and soaring bridges connect peaks divided by deep gorges.
The Yuan studios produced paintings to decorate the residences of wealthy Yangzhou salt merchants and princely palaces. The title Road to Shu refers to the historical drama of the flight of Tang emperor Xuanzong (reigned 712–56) to Sichuan in the aftermath of the An Lushan Rebellion (755–63). At the same time, the scenery alludes to Anhui, the mountainous native country of many of the salt merchants and their trade routes in northern parts of the empire.
