id: 149762 accession number: 1979.76 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1979.76 updated: 2020-11-04 21:20:14.885000 Snow Coloring the World White, 1690. Fa Ruozhen (Chinese, 1613-1696). Handscroll, ink on paper; image: 29.3 x 297.2 cm (11 9/16 x 117 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund 1979.76 title: Snow Coloring the World White title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1690 creation date earliest: 1690 creation date latest: 1690 current location: creditline: John L. Severance Fund copyright: --- culture: China, Qing dynasty (1644-1911) technique: handscroll, ink on paper department: Chinese Art collection: ASIAN - Handscroll type: Painting find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Fa Ruozhen (Chinese, 1613-1696) - artist --- measurements: Image: 29.3 x 297.2 cm (11 9/16 x 117 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: Artist's title on frontispiece, colophon with 6 poems, and 7 seals: [seal] Ch'ien-k'un i ts'ao t'ing. Snow Coloring the World White. Huang-shan lao-jen, Jo-chen, at the age of seventy eight. [2 seals] Fa yin Jo-chen; Huang-shih shih. (Artist's poems are not translated.) In the first month of the keng-wu year [1690], 1 was seventy-eight years old. On a snowy day I was pleased to have my good son-in-law Ch'eng-ssu and other gentlemen visiting me at my Tz'u-ching Hall at Yellow Hill. I did this snowscape to record the event. [2 seals] Fa Jo-chen; Tun Chai. [2 seals at end of painting] Fa yin Jo-chen; Huang-shih shih. trans. LYSL/WKH 12 additional seals: 8 of Ho Kuan-wu (20th c.); 1 of Wang Nan-p'ing (20th c.); 3 unidentified. translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Year in Review: 1979 opening date: 1980-02-20T05:00:00 Year in Review: 1979. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 20-March 9, 1980). title: Mountains, Rocks, and Water: Landscape Painting in Asia opening date: 1987-10-02T04:00:00 Mountains, Rocks, and Water: Landscape Painting in Asia. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 2-December 13, 1987). title: Chinese Gallery 240a Rotation – August 2016 opening date: 2016-08-01T04:00:00 Chinese Gallery 240a Rotation – August 2016. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (August 1, 2016-February 6, 2017). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * Cleveland Museum of Art, 1981: Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting, cat. no. 234, p. 316-317. --- PROVENANCE --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: Fa Ruozhen was a scholar-official and prolific poet who focused on painting as his government career declined. The inscription records that he was 78 years old when he painted this handscroll to welcome visitors on a snowy day. At this point in his artistic development, Fa created expressive landscapes and experimented with unconventional brushwork. This handscroll begins at the right with gentle hills dotted with evergreens and bare deciduous trees. By the end, the twisting rocky forms dominate.

Fa’s official career spanned the fall of the Han Chinese Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and the rise of the Manchurian Qing dynasty (1644–1911). While other scholar-officials who declined to serve the Manchus had their reputations enhanced, critics accused Fa of disloyalty for serving in the new bureaucracy. Fa was deeply sensitive about this criticism. In many of his 4,000 known poems, he responded by emphasizing the Confucian virtue of being a good administrator particularly during an unstable time. Fa’s “disorderly” brushwork and distressed landscapes seem to reflect the political upheaval of his era. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1979.76/1979.76_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1979.76/1979.76_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1979.76/1979.76_full.tif