Listening to the Sound of Autumn in a Misty Grove
1657
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
About the artist
1657
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Listening to the Sound of Autumn in a Misty Grove is a 1657 unspecified by Zhang Feng, a Baroque work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a lone figure in a stark landscape with a frosty atmosphere and mist. The artist used red strokes to color the grounds, which is an interesting detail. This was a way for the artist to express something, but it's not clear what. The painting is on display at a museum, and to learn more about similar techniques, look up the technique of sfumato.
Zhang Feng from Nanjing passed the local government examinations shortly before the fall of the Ming dynasty. With the Manchu conquest, he joined the ranks of loyalists who refused to serve the new regime. He chose the intermittently frugal life of a Buddhist adept. Many of his paintings lament the loss of the empire. In this scroll, he depicts a lone figure in a stark landscape of frosty atmosphere enshrouded in mists. Close looking reveals red strokes that color the grounds, a way of expressing his loyalty to the Ming whose family name Zhu means red .
Read the full account in the museum source.
