The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of June 14, 2025

Streams and Mountains without End

1100–1150
(960-1127) - Jin dynasty (1115-1234)
handscroll, ink and slight color on silk
Image: 35.1 x 213 cm (13 13/16 x 83 7/8 in.); Overall: 35.1 x 1103.8 cm (13 13/16 x 434 9/16 in.)
Gift of the Hanna Fund 1953.126
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

The portrayal of the distant lands is rich with details like pavilions, villages, and human activities.

Description

Streams and Mountains without End was a landmark acquisition of 1953, made just a year after Sherman Lee had returned to Cleveland as curator of Oriental art. He acquired it with the intention to provide "a more than adequate foundation for a fine collection of Chinese landscape painting." This impressive work demonstrates the culmination of stylistic developments in Chinese monumental landscape painting following the Northern Song tradition. It represents a journey through a landscape, making it a fitting metaphor for Lee’s journey of discovery and achievement over a lifetime.
  • Mid-1300s
    Chen Ming 陳明 [active mid-1300s]
    1600s
    Wang Changheng 王長恒 [active 1600s]
    1600s
    Liang Qingbiao 梁清標 [1620–1691]
    1700s
    Zhang Bingqian 張秉乾 [juren of 1729]
    by 1736-1911?
    Qing imperial collection (seals of Emperors Qianlong, r. 1736–1795, Jiaqing, r. 1796–1820, and Xuantong, r. 1909–1911)
    early 1900s?
    Ye Gongchuo 葉恭綽 [1881–1968]
    early 1900s-before 1950
    Zhang Daqian 張大千 [1899–1983]
    ?-1950
    (A dealer, Hong Kong, sold to Walter Hochstadter)
    1950-1953
    (Walter Hochstadter [1914–2007], New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    1953-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
    Provenance Footnotes
    1 Giuffrida (2018), p. 203, note 33. "Hochstadter acquired the painting from a dealer rather than directly fro Chang Dai-chien, whose seals were the most recent to be added to the painting. Surviving 1950 receipts from Hong Kong dealers J. D. Chen [Chen Rentao] 陳仁濤 (1906-68), Wah Tung Co., and Chuen Koo Chai list sales of ink-on-silk handscrolls reputedly from the Song period that could be Streams and Mountains (priced at $2,500, $4,000, and $6,000, respectively).
  • Lee, Sherman. "Chinese Landscape Painting." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 41, no. 9 (November 1954): 199-201. Reproduced: cover; Mentioned: p. 199 www.jstor.org
    Lee, Sherman E. Chinese Landscape Painting. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1954. Mentioned: p. 145, cat. 14; Reproduced: p. 27 archive.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 853 archive.org
    Goepper, Roger. 1000 Jahre chinesische Malerei. München: Haus der Kunst, 1959. Reproduced: cat. no.11
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 258 archive.org
    Edwards, Richard. Li Ti. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1967. Mentioned: p. 18, footnote 14 archive.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 258 archive.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 341 archive.org
    Ho, Wai-kam, Sherman E. Lee, Laurence Sickman, and Marc F. Wilson. Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting: The Collections of the Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1980. Reproduced: cat. no. 21, pp. 35-37
    Lee, Sherman E., and Wai-kam Ho. The Nature and Significance of the Collection of Liang Ch'ing-Piao. Taipei, Taiwan: Chung-hua ming-kuo, 70 nien [1981]. p. 122, no. 60
    Harrist, Robert E. Jr. "'Watching Clouds Rise': A Tang Dynasty Couplet and Its Illustration in Song Painting." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Vol. 78, No. 7 (Nov., 1991). Reproduced: pp. 301-323, fig. 8 www.jstor.org
    Cunningham, Michael R., Stanislaw J. Czuma, Anne E. Wardwell, and J. Keith Wilson. Masterworks of Asian Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1998. Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 50–51
    Chou, Ju-hsi and Anita Chung. Silent poetry: Chinese paintings from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015. Reproduced: pp. 34-43
    Chou, Ju-hsi and Anita Chung. Silent poetry: Chinese paintings from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015. Reproduced and mentioned: p. 34
    Chou, Ju-hsi and Anita Chung. Silent poetry: Chinese paintings from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015. Mentioned: p. 41
    Chou, Ju-hsi and Anita Chung. Silent poetry: Chinese paintings from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015. p. 41
    Chou, Ju-hsi and Anita Chung. Silent poetry: Chinese paintings from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015. p. 42
    Chou, Ju-hsi and Anita Chung. Silent poetry: Chinese paintings from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015. p. 42
    Chou, Ju-hsi and Anita Chung. Silent poetry: Chinese paintings from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015. p. 42
    Chou, Ju-hsi and Anita Chung. Silent poetry: Chinese paintings from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015. p. 42
    Chou, Ju-hsi and Anita Chung. Silent poetry: Chinese paintings from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015. p. 42
    Chou, Ju-hsi and Anita Chung. Silent poetry: Chinese paintings from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015. p. 43
    Chou, Ju-hsi and Anita Chung. Silent poetry: Chinese paintings from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015. p. 43
    Lee, Sherman E., and Wai-kam Ho. The Nature and Significance of the Collection of Liang Ch'ing-Piao. Taipei, Taiwan: Chung-hua ming-kuo, 1960. 122
    McCormick, Sooa Im. "Cross-cultural Dialogues and Misattributions in Early Joseon Period Landscape Paintings." Arts of Asia 48, no. 3 (May-June 2018): 78-84. Reproduced: p. 80, fig. 4
    Giuffrida, Noelle. Separating Sheep from Goats: Sherman E. Lee and Chinese Art Collecting in Postwar America. Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2018. Mentioned: pp. 88-91, 203
    Giuffrida, Noelle. Separating Sheep from Goats: Sherman E. Lee and Chinese Art Collecting in Postwar America. Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2018. Reproduced: pp. 90-91, fig. 51; cover; Mentioned: pp. 88-97
  • Silent Poetry: Masterworks of Chinese Painting. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 14, 2015-April 24, 2016).
    Streams and Mountains Without End: Asian Art and the Legacy of Sherman E. Lee at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 27-August 23, 2009).
    Asian Autumn: Masterpieces from the Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 17, 1991-January 5, 1992).
    Visions of Landscape: East and West. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 17-March 21, 1982).
    Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (November 7, 1980-January 4, 1981); The Cleveland Museum of Art (February 11-March 29, 1981); Tokyo National Museum (October 4-November 17, 1982).
    Summer Mountains: the Timeless Landscape. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (organizer) (April 9-October 3, 1976).
    Summer Mountains: The Timeless Landscape. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (1976).
    Chinese Paintings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1960).
    1000 Jahre Chinesische Malerei. Haus der Kunst, Munich, Mùnich, Germany (organizer) (October 16-December 13, 1959).
    In Memoriam: Leonard C. Hanna, Jr.. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 4-April 7, 1958).
    La Chinese des Song. Musée Cernushi, Paris, France (1956).
    Chinese Landscape Painting. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 5-December 26, 1954).
    Chinese Landscape Painting. Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1954). cat. no.16.
  • {{cite web|title=Streams and Mountains without End|url=false|author=|year=1100–1150|access-date=14 June 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1953.126