Herdboys and Buffalo in Landscapes (1200s): Art, History and Details

Herdboys and Buffalo in Landscapes (1200s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Guo Min (Chinese, mid-late 1200s).

The work and its context

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

Herdboys tend their buffalo in a bucolic landscape by a winding stream. Guo Min emphasizes the massive forms and mighty power of the animals, transforming them into forces of nature. The poem in the first scroll reads: "The bulls are engaging in fighting, Cautiously, each seeks to overcome the other. The herdboy calmly stands by. Untying his belt, he silently watches." The poem in the second scroll reads: "Together, they wade through the middle of the stream, Mindless of perils in the journey. The grass grows tall in the village ahead, While the mist and rain spread far and wide."

Object facts

• Title: Herdboys and Buffalo in Landscapes
• Date: 1200s
• Creator attribution: Guo Min (Chinese, mid-late 1200s)
• Culture: China, Qixian, Yuan dynasty (1271-1368)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Pair of hanging scrolls; ink on silk
• Dimensions: Painting: 92.7 x 56.5 cm (36 1/2 x 22 1/4 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1999.216

A detail from the museum

Tending water buffalos has traditionally been the task of young boys and can still be seen in rural areas of Southern China today.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Kokka no. 355 (1919) pp. 202-206.
• Harada, Kinjirō 原田謹次郎. Nihon genzai Shina meiga mokuroku 日本現在支那名畫目錄. Tōkyō: Ōtsuka Kōgeisha, 1938.
• Kaikodo (Autumn 1999), no. 2, pp. 94-95, 246-49.

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.