Landscapes in Various Styles after Old Masters (1690): Art, History and Details

Landscapes in Various Styles after Old Masters (1690) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Mei Qing (Chinese, 1623–1697).

The work and its context

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

This leaf presents a rising promontory in the near distance, whose base is hidden by a dense grove of barren, autumnal trees. A gentle incline emerges from the lower right, with a small path leading to its summit, where a gentleman is sheltered from the wind by two pines. This promontory resembles Guangming Ding 光明頂 (Summit of the Bright and Luminous), the second tallest peak in Huangshan 黃山 (Mt. Huang or Yellow Mountain), the scenic area that inspired much of Mei Qing’s artistic production. Instead of looking down on the “Sea of Clouds,” though, as one who scales Huangshan’s peak would, this gentleman is looking out at two boats on an actual sea.

Object facts

• Title: Landscapes in Various Styles after Old Masters
• Date: 1690
• Creator attribution: Mei Qing (Chinese, 1623–1697)
• Culture: China, Qing dynasty (1644-1911)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: album leaf: ink and color on paper
• Dimensions: Overall: 28.6 x 44 cm (11 1/4 x 17 5/16 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Album leaf
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1962.157.8

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. Chinese Landscape Painting. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1954.
• Sirén, Osvald. Chinese Painting: Leading Masters and Principles. New York: Ronald Press, 1956.
• Goepper, Roger. 1000 Jahre chinesische Malerei. München: Haus der Kunst, 1959.

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.