Mt. Biyan (Green Cliff) (c. 1588): Art, History and Details

Mt. Biyan (Green Cliff) (c. 1588) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Song Xu (Chinese, 1525-c. 1606).

The work and its context

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

This album of landscape paintings depicts the famous scenic areas located in and around the city of Wuxing in southeastern China. These places were all known for their natural beauty, but in addition, a number were distinguished by their links to eminent historical figures and events. The artist, Song Xu, was not a native of Wuxing, but must have visited it when he accepted the commission, for he carefully depicted all eighteen views and wrote comments on each of them. Song's gazetteer-like notation on this leaf reads: 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.

Object facts

• Title: Mt. Biyan (Green Cliff)
• Date: c. 1588
• Creator attribution: Song Xu (Chinese, 1525-c. 1606)
• Culture: China, Jiaxing, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Album leaf; ink and color on silk
• Dimensions: Sheet: 26.4 x 28.4 cm (10 3/8 x 11 3/16 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Album leaf
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1998.78.4

Collection credit

The Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• 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.

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.