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Your galleryAlbum of Landscape Paintings Illustrating Old Poems: Listening to the Qin
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Find the dark end of the qin beside the figure in pink, who sits with his back to us, then follow the long branch that leans over both men.
In 1745 Hua Yan painted an album of twelve small leaves illustrating old poems. Here a figure in pink plays the qin, a seven-stringed zither, under a leaning tree while a companion listens, and a line of verse stands at the upper right. Scholars were often shown playing the qin out of doors, the Cleveland Museum of Art explains, because its sound stood for harmony between people and nature.
album leaf; ink and light color on paper · Album, closed: 15.4 x 18.5 x 3.1 cm · Cleveland Museum of Art · Chinese painting: Qing
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Album of Landscape Paintings Illustrating Old Poems: Listening to the Qin
- Artist
- Hua Yan (Chinese, 1682–c. 1765)
- Date
- 1745
- Medium
- album leaf; ink and light color on paper
- Dimensions
- Album, closed: 15.4 x 18.5 x 3.1 cm (6 1/16 x 7 5/16 x 1 1/4 in.); Each painting: 11.2 x 13.1 cm (4 7/16 x 5 3/16 in.)
- Credit line
- Edwin R. and Harriet Pelton Perkins Memorial Fund
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Cleveland Museum of Art
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.