The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 19, 2024

Fish and Rocks

Fish and Rocks

mid- to late 1600s
(Chinese, 1626–1705)
China, Qing dynasty (1644-1911)
Handscroll; ink on paper
Overall: 29.2 x 157.4 cm (11 1/2 x 61 15/16 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 1953.247
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

After each poem, Bada Shanren used his so-called jixingyin seal 屐形印, which resembles the impression of a shoe on soft mud.

Description

Bada Shanren, also called Zhu Da, a 17th-century painter who rejected conventions in favor of an individual, personal expression, is known for his unorthodox compositions of fish, flowers, birds, and rocks. Fish in his paintings are often looking upward toward heaven, swimming in a pond of undefined space.

As a member of the Ming imperial family, Zhu Da lost his princely status and hid in a monastery when the Manchus, foreigners from the north, established the Qing dynasty in 1644. This scroll may have some autobiographical meaning, representing fish as leftover subjects (yimin) who lived in a void, having lost their roles in life after the fall of the dynasty.
  • Zhang Daqian 張大千 [1899–1983]
    ?–1953
    Walter Hochstadter [1914–2007], New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    1953–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Sirén, Osvald. Chinese Painting: Leading Masters and Principles. New York: Ronald Press, 1956. Mentioned and Reproduced: VI, pl. 384-B; VII, Lists, p. 325
    Lee, Sherman E. “Some Problems in Ming and Ch'ing Landscape Painting.” Ars Orientalis, vol. 2, 1957, pp. 471–485. Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 483, 484, pl. 14, fig. 19
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 872 archive.org
    Lee, Sherman E. “The Two Styles of Chu Ta.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 45, no. 9, 1958, pp. 215–219. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 216 25142297
    Goepper, Roger. Im Schatten des Wu-Tʻung-Baumes [桐陰畫訣= Tong yin hua jue]. München: Hirmer, 1959. Reproduced: pl. 31
    Goepper, Roger. 1000 Jahre chinesische Malerei. München: Haus der Kunst, 1959. Reproduced: cat. no. 118
    Sullivan, Michael. An Introduction to Chinese Art. London: Faber and Faber, 1961. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 195, pl. 137
    Goepper, Roger. The Essence of Chinese Painting. London: Lund Humphries, 1963. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 138, pls. 30, 31
    Lee, Sherman E. A History of Far Eastern Art. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1964. Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 451, 452, fig. 593
    Sullivan, Michael. Chinese and Japanese Art. New York: Grolier, 1965. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 262, fig. D
    Auboyer, Jeannine, and Roger Goepper. The Oriental World: India and South-East Asia. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967. Reproduced: pl. 84
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 268 archive.org
    Froncek, Thomas, and Hugh Honour. The Horizon Book of the Arts of China. New York: American Heritage Pub. Co, 1969. Reproduced: p. 199
    Zhang, Wanli 張萬里 and Hu Renmu 胡仁牧. Badashanren shu hua ji 八大山人書畫集. Xianggang Jiulong: Kai fa gu fen you xian gong si, 1969. Reproduced: pl. 27
    Chu Ta: Selected Paintings & Calligraphy. Poughkeepsie, NY: The College, 1973. cat. no. 8
    Lee, Sherman Emery, and James Robinson. The Colors of Ink: Chinese Paintings and Related Ceramics from the Cleveland Museum of Art. New York: Asia Society; distributed by New York Graphic Society, 1974. Reproduced: cat. no. 45
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 356 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. 235, pp. 318-319
    Wang, Fangyu, Richard M. Barnhart, and Judith G. Smith. Master of the Lotus Garden: The Life and Art of Bada Shanren, 1626-1705. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Art Gallery, 1990. Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 128–129, cat. no. 22
    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. 96-97
    Donley, Gregory, "Three New Curators", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 39 no. 04, April 1999 Mentioned & reproduced: p. 7 archive.org
    Thorp, Robert L., and Richard Ellis Vinograd. Chinese Art & Culture. New York: Abrams, 2001. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 332, 9-15
    May, Sally Ruth, Jane Takac, and Barbara J. Bradley. Knockouts: A Pocket Guide. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001. Mentioned: no. 84, pp. 79-80, 119; Reproduced: p. 78
    Schirokauer, Conrad, and Donald N. Clark. Modern East Asia: A Brief History. South Melbourne, Australia: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2004. Reproduced: fig. 2.3, p. 27
    Schirokauer, Conrad. A Brief History of Chinese and Japanese Civilizations. Australia: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2006. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 384, fig. 15.3
    Convergences: Chen Wen Hsi centennial exhibition [汇流 : 陈文希百年诞辰纪念展 = Hui liu: Chen Wenxi bai nian dan chen ji nian zhan]. Singapore: Singapore Art Museum, 2006. p. 247
    Schirokauer, Conrad, and Miranda Brown. A Brief History of Chinese Civilization. Australia: Wadsworth, 2005. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 240, fig. 10.3
    Clunas, Craig. Art in China. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 166, fig. 87
    Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 109
    Chou, Ju-hsi and Anita Chung. Silent poetry: Chinese paintings from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015. Mentioned: p. 398
    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. 104-105, fig. 59
  • Flora and Fauna (Chinese art rotation). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 6, 2020-June 6, 2021).
    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).
    Main Asian Gallery Rotation (Gallery 122). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (March 10-April 7, 2004).
    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).
    The Colors of Ink. Asia House Galleries (January 10-March 3, 1974); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 9-May 12, 1974).
    Chu Ta. Vassar College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, NY (February 28-April 14, 1973).
    Chu Ta: Selected Paintings and Calligraphy. The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center (organizer) (December 2, 1972-January 28, 1973); The New York Cultural Center, New York, NY (February 28-April 15, 1973).
    Masterpieces of Chinese Painting. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1960).
    1000 Jahre Chinesische Malerei. Haus der Kunst, Munich, Mùnich, Germany (organizer) (October 16-December 13, 1959).
  • {{cite web|title=Fish and Rocks|url=false|author=Bada Shanren|year=mid- to late 1600s|access-date=19 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1953.247