About this artwork
This landscape is precisely rendered in a detailed manner that blends the Song dynasty (960-1279) tradition with newer stylistic elements. It also combines standard motifs of the landscape and flower-and-bird genres. Scattered across the foreground are mandarin ducks, lotus, and bamboo, a traditional grouping drawn from flower-and-bird painting of the Song dynasty. But the trees growing from the right side of the same area are treated in a contemporary, early fourteenth century manner. These trees lead the eye upward into the middle distance, where geese taking flight over rushes signify autumn, a seasonal reference confirmed by the bare treetops. The touches of color used to highlight various forms in the foreground, and the blue-green coloring applied to some of the rocks, are both archaizing features that emulate painting of the Tang dynasty (618-907). In the background are monumental mountain forms, convincingly portrayed as if shrouded in mist, derived from the Song landscape tradition.
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Arts of Asia
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Title
- Flight of Geese
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Place
- China (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- 1279–1644
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Medium
- Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
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Dimensions
- 64.8 × 38.1 cm (25 1/2 × 15 in.)
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Credit Line
- Gift of The Orientals
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Reference Number
- 1953.439
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IIIF Manifest
- https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/79716/manifest.json