Collection Online as of September 25, 2023

Song Xu 宋旭

(Chinese, 1525-c. 1606)

China, Jiaxing, Ming dynasty

(1368–1644)

Album leaf; ink and color on silk

Sheet: 26.4 x 28.4 cm (10 3/8 x 11 3/16 in.)

The Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund 1998.78.4

Location

003 Special Exhibition Hall

Description

Green Cliff Mountain used to have a primeval forest, with a temple hidden within it. Now, those primeval forests have been wantonly and completely cut down. Consequently, with its devastated look, few travelers are coming. Still, with its peaks, cliffs, waterfall, there is no lack of scenic beauty.

Inscriptions

Inscription

碧巖山：山多古木，寺藏其中。今為人侵伐殆盡，遂成荒廢，遊者鮮矣。然嶺崖飛瀑，不減清致。

Inscription Translation

Leaf 16. Mt. Biyan: This mountain used to have a primeval forest, with a temple hidden within it. Now, those primeval forests have been wantonly and completely cut down. Consequently, with its devastated look, few travelers are coming. Still, with its peaks, cliffs, and waterfall, there is no lack of scenic beauty.

Song Xu

Song Xu (宋旭, 1525–c. 1606), was a versatile Chinese painter active in northern Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces. He was skilled in landscapes, boundary paintings (界畫, paintings of architecture), figure painting, and Buddhist painting. Although born a commoner, he also cultivated the literati arts of poetry and calligraphy. He studied Chan Buddhism and eventually became a Buddhist priest himself.

Provenance

?–1998

(Kaikodo America Inc., New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)

1998–

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Citations

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. Reproduced: pp. 287-295

Exhibition history

China's Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta (Jiangnan). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 10, 2023-January 7, 2024).

The Cleveland Museum of Art

Eighteen Views of Huzhou

湖州十八景圖