Provenance
E. A. Strehlneek 史德匿 [c. 1871-?], Shanghai, China (early 1900s); (C. C. Wang 王季遷 [1907–2003], New York, NY, sold to Mr. and Mrs. A. Dean Perry); Mr. Albert Dean Perry [1909–1987] and Mrs. A. Dean [Helen Wade Greene] Perry [1911–1996], Cleveland, OH (?–1987); Mrs. A. Dean [Helen Wade Greene] Perry [1911–1996], Cleveland, OH, bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art (1987–1997); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1997–)
Accession Number
1997.88
Medium
Album leaf; ink and light color on silk
Dimensions
Overall: 33.7 x 39.3 cm (13 1/4 x 15 1/2 in.); with cover: 67.5 x 39.3 cm (26 9/16 x 15 1/2 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Bequest of Mrs. A. Dean Perry
Tags
Painting Medieval (500–1399) Ink Silk Painting Chinese
Background & Context
Background Story
Ma Yuan (active c. 1190-1225) was a Chinese painter of the Southern Song dynasty known as one of the most important landscape painters in the history of Chinese art, whose compositions that focus on one corner of the picture earned him the nickname One-Corner Ma. Watching the Deer by a Pine Shaded Stream from the 1127-1279 Southern Song period depicts deer by a stream in the one-corner compositional manner that distinguishes Ma Yuan's best work from the more panoramic landscape painting of his predecessors. Ma Yuan's one-corner compositions—leaving large areas of the picture blank while focusing attention on one corner—represent one of the most important developments in the history of Chinese landscape painting.
Cultural Impact
Watching the Deer by a Pine Shaded Stream is important in the history of Chinese painting because it demonstrates the one-corner compositional manner that Ma Yuan developed as one of the most important innovations in Chinese landscape painting. Ma Yuan's one-corner compositions—leaving large blank areas while focusing attention on one corner of the picture—represent a radical departure from the more panoramic landscape compositions of earlier Song dynasty painting, and this development in compositional innovation is one of the most important in the history of Chinese art.
Why It Matters
Watching the Deer by a Pine Shaded Stream is Ma Yuan's one-corner composition: deer by a stream rendered in the compositional manner that earned him the nickname One-Corner Ma and represents one of the most important innovations in Chinese landscape painting. The Southern Song period painting shows the radical departure from panoramic landscape to focused composition.
