1788
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
Dragon amid Clouds is a 1788 unspecified by Min Zhen, a Chinese Orthodox School work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
A dragon twists through swirling clouds, claws outstretched like lightning. The ink is dark and wet, the brushstrokes quick and sure. Min Zhen painted this in 1788, late in his life. He was an orphan who learned to paint from a man who ran the imperial porcelain kilns. That job gave him time in Beijing, but his style feels loose and wild—more like the artists of Yangzhou, a city known for rebels. If you like this, look up *china, qing dynasty (1644-1911)* for more paintings of dragons and storms.
Min Zhen, who was orphaned at age 12 and developed an eccentric personality, was trained by Tang Yin (1682–1756), a writer, playwright, and superintendent of the imperial porcelain workshops in Jingdezhen. The connection to him may have enabled Min to stay in Beijing for a decade from around 1773. It is not clear whether he ever resided in Yangzhou, but his style is in many instances reminiscent of that of Yangzhou artist Huang Shen. This album demonstrates Min’s versatility and mature style in the last years of his life.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Min Zhen was a Chinese painter and seal carver born in Nanchang, Jiangxi, who spent most of his life in Hubei.
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