Pine Wind from Myriad Villages (late 1600s–1718): Art, History and Details

Pine Wind from Myriad Villages (late 1600s–1718) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Wu Li (Chinese, 1632–1718).

The work and its context

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

Wu Li, a native of Jiangsu province, was a talented painter, poet, and calligrapher. He studied painting with Wang Jian (1598–1677) and Wang Shimin (1592–1680), two of the “Four Wangs,” leaders of the Orthodox school of painting in the early Qing period. Through them, he also absorbed styles of earlier Ming dynasty masters. Wu was highly praised by his contemporaries and his paintings were in demand, but his interest in philosophy and religion curtailed his painting activities later in life. Wu Li converted to Christianity and in 1688 was ordained as one of the first 3 Chinese Jesuit priests. He spent the final 30 years of his life primarily in missionary work with the poor. Although this painting is undated, the sooty blackness of the ink tones and the easy self-confidence with which they are set down on paper echo recognized late works.

Object facts

• Title: Pine Wind from Myriad Villages
• Date: late 1600s–1718
• Creator attribution: Wu Li (Chinese, 1632–1718)
• Culture: China, Qing dynasty (1644–1911)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Hanging scroll; ink and light color on paper
• Dimensions: Image: 109.5 x 25.9 cm (43 1/8 x 10 3/16 in.); Overall: 207 x 44.9 cm (81 1/2 x 17 11/16 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1954.584

A detail from the museum

A figure carrying a qin, zither, walks between the buildings, perhaps intending to play music for the two men seated beneath the pines.

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.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.

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.