Cleveland Museum of Art

Retreat on an Autumn Day, in Cursive Script

Zhu Yunming

Date

dated 1523

Medium

Handscroll; ink on paper

Culture

China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)

Department

Chinese Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

This masterwork of calligraphy by Zhu Yunming from Suzhou combines two poems by the artist in cursive script style, characterized by its uninhibited, swift, and intuitive brushwork, so powerful that it here dissolved characters into dots or lines. Written from right to left and top to bottom and alternating in light dry to deep saturated ink, single characters may take a whole column or extend into the next one. Following the movement of the brush, they seem to dance over the paper. Zhu Yunming stated that he was in an inebriated state when he created this work.

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