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Album of Daoist and Buddhist Themes: Search the Mountain: Leaf 42

Unknown

1204

unspecified

From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art

Ming Painting Medieval Religious

Dominant colour

Album of Daoist and Buddhist Themes: Search the Mountain: Leaf 42 is a 1204 unspecified by Unknown, a Ming Painting work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.

Who painted this?: Unknown
When & what style?: 1204 · Ming Painting
Where can I see it?: Cleveland Museum of Art

About this work

You see a small, ink-on-paper scene: soldiers in armor hack at twisted trees while a winged warrior hovers above them. This leaf was part of a teaching album—fifty pages of gods and demons that studio apprentices copied to learn the rules of sacred art. The soldiers aren’t just fighting trees; they’re clearing space for order, a common Daoist idea. Look up more works from china, southern song dynasty (1127-1279) to see how ink could tell whole stories in a single breath.

The story of this work

Overview

This extraordinary album has 50 paintings on a variety of religious subjects. They were likely created by several master craftsmen to share with studio apprentices as models for fulfilling commissions. The Jade Emperor and the Daoist pantheon make up the first 26 leaves. The next 14 leaves portray the Buddhist Ten Kings of Hell administering punishments to the dead. The third section, called “Clearing the Mountains,” features divine soldiers, led presumably by the deity Erlang Shen 二郎神, fighting undesirable creatures.