Cleveland Museum of Art

Zhi and Xu's Pure Conversation

Lan YingLinkedCulture matchlcp-88cb1bb5f182

Date: 1643
Medium: Hanging scroll; ink on paper
Culture: China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
Department: Chinese Art
Institution: Cleveland Museum of Art
Object ID: 144920

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

Lan Ying’s painting is a gift to his friend, the Chan monk Wuyun, in which he depicted two sages of the Six Dynasties period: the Buddhist monk Zhidun (314–366 CE), and the Daoist priest Xu Xun (265–420 CE). Meant to be understood as an analogy of the friendship between artist and monk, the painting also offered a retreat into the past, a year before the fall of the Ming dynasty. A professional painter born in Hangzhou, Lan Ying is traditionally considered a last representative of the Zhe school. Lan wrote poetic inscriptions and interacted with the literatus Chen Jiru (1558–1639). This painting serves as an analogy of the friendship between artist and monk.

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Provenance & credit

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Credit line: Gift of Stephen O. K. Chen
Provenance: Cheng Qi 程琦 [1911–1988], by descent to his son, Stephen O. K. Chen | ?–1970: Stephen O. K. Chen [20th century], New York, NY, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art | 1970–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Part of a LinkedCulture topic

Chinese landscape paintings
These are predominantly Chinese paintings from the Ming, Qing, Yuan, and Song dynasties that depict natural landscape scenes including mountains, rivers, forests, and human settlements using traditional media such as ink
180 objects from 5 institutions