On Happiness, Calligraphy in Seal Script Style (zhuanshu) (1871): Art, History and Details

On Happiness, Calligraphy in Seal Script Style (zhuanshu) (1871) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Yang Yisun (Chinese, 1813–1881).

The work and its context

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

Yang Yisun transcribed this ancient text on six narrow scrolls, starting at the top right and ending at the bottom left. Yang emphasizes the text’s historic nature by using the seal script style found on stone steles and bronze vessels. On Happiness features reflections of a scholar on a leisurely life in the countryside, composed by Han dynasty official Zhongchang Tong, who died the year the Han dynasty collapsed (AD 220). The idyllic life described in the text may be an evocation of the past in a time of national crisis. A decade before Yang wrote these scrolls, Anglo-French forces had looted and burned the Summer Palace in Beijing. At the same time, the domestic Taiping rebellion (1850–64), led by a religious fanatic to overthrow the Qing government, had devastated Yang’s homeland, the Jiangnan region, with an estimated 20 million lives lost.

Object facts

• Title: On Happiness, Calligraphy in Seal Script Style (zhuanshu)
• Date: 1871
• Creator attribution: Yang Yisun (Chinese, 1813–1881)
• Culture: China, Changsu, Qing dynasty (1644-1911)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Set of six hanging scrolls; ink on paper
• Dimensions: Overall: 132.7 x 32.3 cm (52 1/4 x 12 11/16 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1999.174

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art, “Mrs. Paul Wurzburger Donates Major Calder Mobile to Cleveland Museum of Art, Korean Painting, Japanese Ceramic, Italian Drawing and other Works Acquired” September 8, 1999, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.

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.