Clearing Autumn Mists in the Chu Mountains (1600s): Art, History and Details

Clearing Autumn Mists in the Chu Mountains (1600s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Lan Ying (Chinese, 1585–after 1664).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

In his inscription Lan Yin states that he uses Mi Fu’s methods to depict this landscape. The ovoid "Mi" dots—Mi Fu’s brush idioms—are applied to give shape to the cloud-enveloped mountains and foreground tree grove for self expression. Engaging in the process of fang (imitation), he acquired the methods of various schools and masters to expand his technical range for creative transformations. Lan Yin developed his unique style and inspired major artists like Liu Du and Chen Hongshou.

Object facts

• Title: Clearing Autumn Mists in the Chu Mountains
• Date: 1600s
• Creator attribution: Lan Ying (Chinese, 1585–after 1664)
• Culture: China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: hanging scroll, ink and light color on silk
• Dimensions: Painting: 185.3 x 48.4 cm (72 15/16 x 19 1/16 in.); Overall with knobs: 283.5 x 71.5 cm (111 5/8 x 28 1/8 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1971.231

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• 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.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.