Mt. Fenghuang (Mt. Phoenix)
1588
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
About the artist
1588
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Mt. Fenghuang (Mt. Phoenix) is a 1588 unspecified by Song Xu, a Ming Painting work, depicting Jiaxing, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
This ink painting shows Mount Fenghuang rising above misty trees. A scholar’s boat glides on Lake Tai below. White clouds break over jagged peaks, framing the scene. Song Xu painted this during the Ming dynasty. Travel books about Chinese scenery were popular then. These albums let people “visit” far-off places without leaving home. Look up another Song Xu album at The Cleveland Museum of Art.
By the 1500s, visits to historic and scenic sites in the lower Yangzi delta stimulated an increase of printed illustrated travel books. Topographical depictions of local scenery flourished. Leaves from this album illustrates sites around Lake Tai of the two adjacent counties Changxing and Wuxing (modern Huzhou). Song Xu, who lived intermittently in Jiaxing and Songjiang, must have passed through Wuxing by boat and thus knew the region. The paintings are inscribed with gazetteerlike notations, suggesting that the album was produced for clients as commemorative works, a travel guide, or for…
Read the full account in the museum source.
