River Village in a Rainstorm

江村風雨圖

c. 1480–1507

Lu Wenying 呂文英

(Chinese)

Culture

China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)

Medium

Hanging scroll; ink and slight color on silk

Measurements

Painting: 170.5 x 103.4 cm (67 1/8 x 40 11/16 in.); Overall with knobs: 279.6 x 134.3 cm (110 1/16 x 52 7/8 in.)

Credit Line

John L. Severance Fund 1970.76

You can copy, modify, and distribute this work, all without asking permission. Learn more about CMA's Open Access Initiative.

Location

Not on view

Did You Know?

A young boy peeks out a window perhaps viewing the two people struggling through the rain.

Description

In this scene, windswept rain pelting a village captures the power of nature in a masterful composition.

Lü Wenying from Zhejiang served as a court painter during the Hongzhi era (1488–1505). Hardly known, with few remaining works, he is considered a Zhe school painter who followed the style of the Southern Song academy. Zhe school painters, named after the province of Zhejiang, transformed the poetic scenery of the Southern Song artists into dramatic, large-scale views. Active in the same region with frequent monsoon rains in the summer season, artists were familiar with outbreaks of rain and storms.