Duck in Flight
These three fan-shaped paintings, now mounted as individual hanging scrolls, were once part of a set of 20 mounted on a folding screen. They portray the Chinese subjects, from left to right, of the scholar-official Pan Lang, Hanshan reciting his poetry to Shide, and a duck in flight above reeds. Pan Lang grew so fond of the mountain in his place of exile that when he was ordered back to the capital, he rode backward on his donkey so he could see it until it receded into the distance. Hanshan and Shide worked in the kitchen of a Zen monastery, but were actually reincarnations of the bodhisattvas Manjushri and Samantabhadra. The combination of a mandarin duck and reeds may have signified a level of attainment in Chinese civil service exams. All three paintings bear the seal of the Kantobased artist Shikibu Terutada. Shikibu was familiar with Kano school painting, but he also modeled his early style after that of the prominent Kanto-based Kenkō Shōkei (active about 1470–after 1523).
Colors in this work
Details
- Date
- mid-1500s
- Dimensions
- mounted: height 0.998 m, width 0.652 m; painting: height 0.25 m, width 0.502 m; mounted with cord: height 1.023 m; mounted with knobs: width 0.703 m; knob diam: height 0.025 m
- Department
- Japanese Art
- Holding institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Palette
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Select a color to find related artworks.
- Image provider
- cleveland-museum-of-art
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- Seventy-fifth anniversary gift of Leighton Longhi in memory of Yabumoto Soshiro
Art Genome Taxonomy
12 tags
Subject Matter
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Animals Both · 99%
The image clearly depicts a bird, and the museum title and description identify it as a duck in flight.
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Movement Visual · 98%
The duck is shown airborne with both wings extended, making flight and motion central to the depicted subject.
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Flora Both · 98%
Reeds and low marsh vegetation are visibly rendered across the lower portion of the fan, and the museum description identifies the subject as a duck above reeds.
Visual Qualities
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Sparse Visual · 94%
The painted elements occupy a limited portion of the broad gold-toned fan, leaving substantial open ground around the bird and vegetation.
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Asymmetrical Visual · 93%
The off-center bird and unevenly distributed reeds create an asymmetrical arrangement within the fan-shaped field.
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Linear Forms Visual · 93%
Economical ink lines describe the reeds, while repeated linear marks articulate the wings and plumage.
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Earth Tones Visual · 89%
The visible palette is dominated by muted ocher, tan, gray-brown, and black tones, with a red seal providing a contrasting accent.
Medium and Techniques
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Album, Folio and Fan Formats Both · 99%
The image has a fan-shaped painted field, and the museum identifies the object as a fan painting later mounted as an individual hanging scroll.
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Painting Metadata · 99%
The museum classifies the object as a painting and specifies ink and gold on paper.
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Work on Paper Metadata · 99%
The museum identifies paper as the support for the fan painting.
Geographic Regions
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Japanese Art Metadata · 99%
The museum classifies the work within Japanese Art and records its place of origin as Japan, Muromachi period.
Materials
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Gold Both · 98%
The catalog records gold as part of the medium, and the image visibly presents a warm gold-toned ground.
Source & rights
Shikibu Terutada (Japanese, active mid-1500s). Duck in Flight. Cleveland Museum of Art.
High-resolution sources
- Original TIFF ↗ 7,743 × 4,179 · Cleveland Museum Of Art · Available