Landscape in the Style of Dong Yuan and Juran (c. 1650): Art, History and Details

Landscape in the Style of Dong Yuan and Juran (c. 1650) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Gong Xian (Chinese, 1599–1689).

The work and its context

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

Towering peaks and unfolding ranges are piled up and overlaid with layer after layer of brushwork to give an overall dense, dark, and even melancholic effect. Gong Xian created a personal style of landscape, which departed greatly from his models Dong Yuan and Juran. The tension between tradition and individuality had been a topic of interest for the Chinese artist. As Gong Xian writes in his inscription: "Painters of later periods may be known for their natural talents or praised for their observance of established traditions. . . . However, those who indulge in showing off their talent will deviate from the tradition, while those who adhere to tradition will alienate themselves from the Dao. The supreme Dao is inexplicable in words. . . ."

Object facts

• Title: Landscape in the Style of Dong Yuan and Juran
• Date: c. 1650
• Creator attribution: Gong Xian (Chinese, 1599–1689)
• Culture: China, Qing dynasty (1644-1911)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: hanging scroll, ink with white pigment on silk
• Dimensions: Image: 216.6 x 57.3 cm (85 1/4 x 22 9/16 in.); Overall: 285.8 x 75.5 cm (112 1/2 x 29 3/4 in.); with knobs: 258.8 x 90.1 cm (101 7/8 x 35 1/2 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1969.123

Collection credit

Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cahill, James. "The Early Styles of Kung Hsien." Oriental Art XVI, no. 1 (Spring 1970), pp. 51–71.
• “Art of Asia Recently Acquired by American Museums, 1969.” Archives of Asian Art 24 (1970): 86–117.
• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1969.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 57, no. 1 (January 1970): 2–50.

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.