Landscape with Woodcutters Returning Home

1200s

China, Southern Song dynasty

(1127-1279)

Medium

hanging scroll, ink on silk

Measurements

Image: 124.5 x 58.3 cm (49 x 22 15/16 in.); Overall: 203.2 x 81.3 cm (80 x 32 in.)

Credit Line

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1988.20

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Location

Not on view

Did You Know?

A landscape with identical measurements in a Japanese private collection is also inscribed by Xuzhou. They may have been a pair of flanking scrolls in a triptych.

Description

In late Song dynasty Chinese Chan Buddhist temples, paintings of landscapes, animals, or plants frequently took the place of deities. This hanging scroll features the humble life of woodcutters in nature an is in keeping with the Chan emphasis on simplicity and on the spiritual benefits of manual labor. executed in broad, quickly applied washes and punctuated by dark dots and texture strokes, the work is inscribed by Xuzhou Pudu, a priest at Wanshou temple near the Southern Song capital at Lin'an (modern Hangzhou).