Bring your favorites together in your free personal gallery.
Your galleryOld Trees by a Wintry Brook
Look first
- What catches your attention?
- Where does your eye go next?
- What would you ask about this work?
Show me
Compare the two twisted junipers, then find the dark clusters of ink dots where leaves still cling to their branches, and the brook winding behind them.
Wen Zhengming’s inscription says he “playfully” painted these old trees by a wintry brook in the fifth month of 1551, at eighty-two by the Chinese count of years. A winter scene made in spring leads the Cleveland Museum of Art to wonder whether the old painter was thinking of his own age. The gnarled junipers look battered, yet ink-dot leaves on some branches show they are still alive.
hanging scroll, ink and light color on paper · Image: 114.3 x 47 cm · Cleveland Museum of Art · Chinese painting: Ming
Look again
What do you notice now?
Try a quick sketch
Take a minute to sketch on any paper. No upload needed.
What did you draw first? What did you leave out?
Details and source
- Museum title
- Old Trees by a Wintry Brook
- Artist
- Wen Zhengming (Chinese, 1470–1559)
- Date
- 1551
- Medium
- hanging scroll, ink and light color on paper
- Dimensions
- Image: 114.3 x 47 cm (45 x 18 1/2 in.)
- Credit line
- Bequest of Mrs. A. Dean Perry
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Cleveland Museum of Art
Artist’s life 1470–1559
View in the AtlasGaller’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.