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Your galleryThe Fool's Spring, from Twelve Views of Tiger Hill, Suzhou
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Follow the zigzag path from the walker at the lower left to the two men by the round stone rim of the spring, then up to the old tree’s roots.
Like most of the Tiger Hill views, this leaf is painted in ink alone, in what the Cleveland Museum of Art calls Shen Zhou’s mature style. Supported by family wealth, Shen turned down an official career for the life of a retired scholar and took up painting in midlife. Here visitors pause on a paved path at the Fool’s Spring, below an old tree whose roots grip the slope.
Album leaf; ink on paper or ink and slight color on paper · Image: 31.7 x 41.1 cm · Cleveland Museum of Art · Chinese painting: Ming
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Details and source
- Museum title
- The Fool's Spring, from Twelve Views of Tiger Hill, Suzhou
- Artist
- Shen Zhou (Chinese, 1427–1509)
- Date
- after 1490
- Medium
- Album leaf; ink on paper or ink and slight color on paper
- Dimensions
- Image: 31.7 x 41.1 cm (12 1/2 x 16 3/16 in.); Overall: 36.5 x 49.9 cm (14 3/8 x 19 5/8 in.)
- Credit line
- Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Cleveland Museum of Art
Artist’s life 1427–1509
View in the AtlasGaller’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.







