Cleveland Museum of Art

Mt. Shenchang

Song Xu

Date

c. 1588

Medium

Album leaf; ink and color on silk

Culture

China, Jiaxing, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)

Department

Chinese Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

By the 1500s, visits to historic and scenic sites in the lower Yangzi delta stimulated an increase of printed illustrated travel books. Topographical depictions of local scenery flourished. Leaves from this album illustrates sites around Lake Tai of the two adjacent counties Changxing and Wuxing (modern Huzhou). Song Xu, who lived intermittently in Jiaxing and Songjiang, must have passed through Wuxing by boat and thus knew the region. The paintings are inscribed with gazetteerlike notations, suggesting that the album was produced for clients as commemorative works, a travel guide, or for “armchair travel” ( woyou ) in one’s mind.

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