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Album of Daoist and Buddhist Themes: Search the Mountain: Leaf 43

Unknown

1204

unspecified

From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art

Ming Painting Medieval Mythology

Dominant colour

Album of Daoist and Buddhist Themes: Search the Mountain: Leaf 43 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 drawing on paper: soldiers in armor fighting monsters shaped like rams, tigers, and demons in a rocky forest. These sketches were once part of a larger set called *Clearing the Mountains*. The original text is lost, so we only have the pictures. The soldiers look like gods sent to chase evil spirits out of the wild. To see more works like this, look up china, southern song dynasty (1127-1279).

The story of this work

Overview

This leaf and the one nearby belongs to a group of sketches with the theme “Clearing the Mountains” ( soushan tu ). The textual basis has long been lost; only the paintings survive. Here, fearsome divine soldiers fight against evil spirits depicted as animals and human-like creatures in mountains and forests. At the lower left, a soldier attacks a ram. To the right, two soldiers attempt to subdue a tiger. Three soldiers (one wielding a sword) emerge from an opening in the cliffs.