Landscape with Poet Tao Yuanming (365–472 CE)
1350
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1350
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Landscape with Poet Tao Yuanming (365–472 CE) is a 1350 unspecified by Unknown, a Ming Painting work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a quiet hillside dotted with bamboo, a scholar in a wide hat, and a servant carrying wine under a gnarled pine. This painting shows the poet Tao Yuanming, who walked away from government work to live simply in nature. The artist never signed the scroll, so we don’t know who made it—just that it was painted centuries after the poet died. Look up more paintings of china, ming dynasty (1368-1644) or earlier to see how later artists kept his story alive.
Poet Tao Yuanming (365–427 CE) turned down a civil service career in politically turbulent times to write poetry and enjoy his garden. In his poem Drinking Wine , he wrote: "I pluck chrysanthemums under the eastern fence, and serenely I gaze at the southern mountains." His desire to leave bureaucratic life for the simplicity and authenticity of nature has deeply resonated with generations of Chinese scholars, making it a popular theme in paintings.
The archaic vessels and qin , or seven-stringed zither, on the table allude to the gentleman-scholar’s cultural refinement.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Your cart is empty
Explore artworks →
