Landscape Album in Various Styles: Pleasure in a Mountain Brook

Description

Zha Shibiao, a native of Anhui province, moved to Yangzhou later in his career, like so many of his fellow countrymen. At age 68, he painted this album with seasonal landscapes in various styles. Painted in fresh colors and wet strokes, all depict typical scenes of Jiangnan, the Yangzi delta: a herdboy on a buffalo wading through water, boating on the stream to the Peach Blossom Spring at Wulin, a waterfront town shrouded in mist, a scholar on his donkey enjoying the red autumn leaves, and drinking tea on a boat while watching migrating birds.

Provenance

Ma Yueguan 馬曰琯 [1688–1755]; Ding Huikang 丁惠康 [1868/1869–about 1918] and Gu Anmi 顧安宓; (C. T. Loo & Co., New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) (?-1955); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1955-)

Landscape Album in Various Styles: Pleasure in a Mountain Brook

Zha Shibiao

1684

Accession Number

1955.37.9

Medium

album leaf, ink and light color on paper

Dimensions

Overall: 29.9 x 39.4 cm (11 3/4 x 15 1/2 in.)

Classification

Painting

Museum

The Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, United States

Credit Line

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Severance A. Millikin

Tags

Painting Baroque (1600–1750) Ink Paper Chinese

Background & Context

Background Story

Pleasure in a Mountain Brook is the most relaxed leaf in Zha Shibiao's 1684 album, depicting a scholar enjoying the natural world without the political subtext that shadows some of the other leaves. A figure sits by a mountain stream, perhaps fishing, contemplating, or simply being present in the landscape. The brook tumbles over rocks in a composition that follows the conventions of the 'shanshui' (mountain-water) tradition while maintaining the Xin'an School's characteristic restraint and dry-brush elegance.

Cultural Impact

Not every leaf in Zha's album needs to carry Ming loyalist meaning. Pleasure in a Mountain Brook represents the Daoist dimension of literati culture: the genuine joy of being in nature, which required no political context to be meaningful. The ability to find pleasure in a mountain stream was one of the core values that Chinese culture preserved through every dynastic transition.

Why It Matters

Pleasure in a Mountain Brook is Zha Shibiao at rest. Even a Ming loyalist was allowed to enjoy a mountain stream, and this leaf reminds us that the cultural tradition Zha was preserving included not just duty and resistance but genuine delight in the natural world.