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May 18, 2010

Apr 8, 2004

May 18, 2010

Apr 8, 2004

May 18, 2010

Apr 8, 2004

May 18, 2010

Apr 8, 2004

May 18, 2010

Fish and Rocks

魚石圖

mid- to late 1600s

Bada Shanren 八大山人

(Chinese, 1626–1705)

China, Qing dynasty

(1644-1911)

Handscroll; ink on paper

Overall: 29.2 x 157.4 cm (11 1/2 x 61 15/16 in.)

John L. Severance Fund 1953.247

Location

not on view

Did you know?

After each poem, Bada Shanren used his so-called jixingyin seal 屐形印, which resembles the impression of a shoe on soft mud.

Description

Bada Shanren, also called Zhu Da, a 17th-century painter who rejected conventions in favor of an individual, personal expression, is known for his unorthodox compositions of fish, flowers, birds, and rocks. Fish in his paintings are often looking upward toward heaven, swimming in a pond of undefined space.

As a member of the Ming imperial family, Zhu Da lost his princely status and hid in a monastery when the Manchus, foreigners from the north, established the Qing dynasty in 1644. This scroll may have some autobiographical meaning, representing fish as leftover subjects (yimin) who lived in a void, having lost their roles in life after the fall of the dynasty.

Inscriptions

Inscription

去天纔尺五，只見白雲行。云何畫黃花，雲中是金城。 [印] 个山

Inscription Translation

Artist's inscription and 1 seal: A foot and half from heaven,/ One can see the floating white clouds./ Why do I paint the yellow flowers?/ For amid the clouds is the City of Gold. [seal] Ge shan.

Inscription Remark

The scattering of chrysanthemums at the lower edge of the rock provide a visual connection with the poem’s allusion to the City of Gold.

Inscription

雙井舊中河，明月時延佇。黃家雙鯉魚，為龍在何處。 [印] 个山

Inscription Translation

Artist's inscription and 1 seal: The Twin Wells was once in midstream./ A bright moon shines in time and lingers./ The twin carp in the Huang family,/ Where do they go to change into dragons? [seal] Ge shan.

Inscription

三萬六千頃，畢竟有魚行。到此一黃頰，海潮次上笙。 [印] 个山

Inscription Translation

Artist's inscription and 2 seals: To this 36,000 qing [of water]/ Here a fish is coming at last./ It is but a yellowcheek./ Over the ocean tides rises the sound of sheng [panpipe]. [seal] Ge shan. [seal, upper right corner] Tsai-fu.

Inscription Remark

One qing 頃 is the equivalent of one hundred mu 畝, a basic unit of land measurement. Numerically, 36,000 qing stands as a reference to Taihu 太湖. The poem’s reference to a yellowcheek suggests that the painting was originally longer and had included an image of another fish.

Inscription

5 additional seals: 2 of Zhang Daqian 張大千 (1899–1983); 1 of Ta-an Chü-shih; 2 unidentified.

Provenance

Zhang Daqian 張大千 [1899–1983]

?–1953

Walter Hochstadter [1914–2007], New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art

1953–

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Citations

Sirén, Osvald. Chinese Painting: Leading Masters and Principles. New York: Ronald Press, 1956. Mentioned and Reproduced: VI, pl. 384-B; VII, Lists, p. 325

Lee, Sherman E. “Some Problems in Ming and Ch'ing Landscape Painting.” Ars Orientalis, vol. 2, 1957, pp. 471–485. Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 483, 484, pl. 14, fig. 19

The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 872 archive.org

Lee, Sherman E. “The Two Styles of Chu Ta.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 45, no. 9, 1958, pp. 215–219. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 216 www.jstor.org

Goepper, Roger. Im Schatten des Wu-Tʻung-Baumes [桐陰畫訣= Tong yin hua jue]. München: Hirmer, 1959. Reproduced: pl. 31

Goepper, Roger. 1000 Jahre chinesische Malerei. München: Haus der Kunst, 1959. Reproduced: cat. no. 118

Sullivan, Michael. An Introduction to Chinese Art. London: Faber and Faber, 1961. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 195, pl. 137

Goepper, Roger. The Essence of Chinese Painting. London: Lund Humphries, 1963. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 138, pls. 30, 31

Lee, Sherman E. A History of Far Eastern Art. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1964. Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 451, 452, fig. 593

Sullivan, Michael. Chinese and Japanese Art. New York: Grolier, 1965. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 262, fig. D

Auboyer, Jeannine, and Roger Goepper. The Oriental World: India and South-East Asia. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967. Reproduced: pl. 84

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 268 archive.org

Froncek, Thomas, and Hugh Honour. The Horizon Book of the Arts of China. New York: American Heritage Pub. Co, 1969. Reproduced: p. 199

Zhang, Wanli 張萬里 and Hu Renmu 胡仁牧. Badashanren shu hua ji 八大山人書畫集. Xianggang Jiulong: Kai fa gu fen you xian gong si, 1969. Reproduced: pl. 27

Chu Ta: Selected Paintings & Calligraphy. Poughkeepsie, NY: The College, 1973. cat. no. 8

Lee, Sherman Emery, and James Robinson. The Colors of Ink: Chinese Paintings and Related Ceramics from the Cleveland Museum of Art. New York: Asia Society; distributed by New York Graphic Society, 1974. Reproduced: cat. no. 45

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 356 archive.org

Ho, Wai-kam, Sherman E. Lee, Laurence Sickman, and Marc F. Wilson. Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting: The Collections of the Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1980. Reproduced: cat. no. 235, pp. 318-319

Wang, Fangyu, Richard M. Barnhart, and Judith G. Smith. Master of the Lotus Garden: The Life and Art of Bada Shanren, 1626-1705. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Art Gallery, 1990. Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 128–129, cat. no. 22

Cunningham, Michael R., Stanislaw J. Czuma, Anne E. Wardwell, and J. Keith Wilson. Masterworks of Asian Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1998. Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 96-97

Donley, Gregory, "Three New Curators", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 39 no. 04, April 1999 Mentioned & reproduced: p. 7 archive.org

Thorp, Robert L., and Richard Ellis Vinograd. Chinese Art & Culture. New York: Abrams, 2001. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 332, 9-15

May, Sally Ruth, Jane Takac, and Barbara J. Bradley. Knockouts: A Pocket Guide. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001. Mentioned: no. 84, pp. 79-80, 119; Reproduced: p. 78

Schirokauer, Conrad, and Donald N. Clark. Modern East Asia: A Brief History. South Melbourne, Australia: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2004. Reproduced: fig. 2.3, p. 27

Schirokauer, Conrad. A Brief History of Chinese and Japanese Civilizations. Australia: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2006. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 384, fig. 15.3

Convergences: Chen Wen Hsi centennial exhibition [汇流 : 陈文希百年诞辰纪念展 = Hui liu: Chen Wenxi bai nian dan chen ji nian zhan]. Singapore: Singapore Art Museum, 2006. p. 247

Schirokauer, Conrad, and Miranda Brown. A Brief History of Chinese Civilization. Australia: Wadsworth, 2005. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 240, fig. 10.3

Clunas, Craig. Art in China. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 166, fig. 87

Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 109

Chou, Ju-hsi and Anita Chung. Silent poetry: Chinese paintings from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015. Mentioned: p. 398

Giuffrida, Noelle. Separating Sheep from Goats: Sherman E. Lee and Chinese Art Collecting in Postwar America. Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2018. Reproduced: pp. 104-105, fig. 59

Exhibition history

Masterpieces of Chinese Painting. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1960).

Chu Ta. Vassar College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, NY (February 28-April 14, 1973).

Main Asian Gallery Rotation (Gallery 122). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (March 10-April 7, 2004).

1000 Jahre Chinesische Malerei. Haus der Kunst, Munich, Mùnich, Germany (organizer) (October 16-December 13, 1959).

Chu Ta: Selected Paintings and Calligraphy. The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center (organizer) (December 2, 1972-January 28, 1973); The New York Cultural Center, New York, NY (February 28-April 15, 1973).

The Colors of Ink. Asia House Galleries (January 10-March 3, 1974); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 9-May 12, 1974).

Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (November 7, 1980-January 4, 1981); The Cleveland Museum of Art (February 11-March 29, 1981); Tokyo National Museum (October 4-November 17, 1982).

Visions of Landscape: East and West. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 17-March 21, 1982).

Streams and Mountains Without End: Asian Art and the Legacy of Sherman E. Lee at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 27-August 23, 2009).

Silent Poetry: Masterworks of Chinese Painting. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 14, 2015-April 24, 2016).

Flora and Fauna (Chinese art rotation). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 6, 2020-June 6, 2021).

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{{cite web|title=Fish and Rocks|url=https://clevelandart.org/art/1953.247|author=Bada Shanren|year=mid- to late 1600s|access-date=05 December 2023|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

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Fish and Rocks

Fish and Rocks

魚石圖

Bada Shanren 八大山人

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