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Water Village
About the Artwork
In the autumn of 1570, Wen Boren painted this seemingly unemotional scene of low-lying marshlands with a chain of rounded mountains in the background. A fishing boat is nestled on the shore near the village. Although paths and bridges traverse the landscape, only two people are visible in the stillness. From the restrained atmosphere of this landscape, one would never guess that Wen Boren was known as the “bad boy” of the Wu School for his explosive temper. As a younger man, he was even embroiled in a contentious lawsuit with his own uncle, Wen Zhengming (1470–1559), a master of Ming dynasty painting with whom he had trained. The ideal of the scholar-painter, or literati, was that an artist’s moral character is reflected in his paintings, so there was great incongruity between Wen Boren’s difficult personality and his restrained landscapes. A contemporary, Wang Shizhen, wrote this about him: "This gentleman is prone to behave odiously and screamed accusations at people. How is it possible for him to carry in his bosom such a wealth of scenic wonders?" Who knows what effort it took to subdue his fractious spirit to project an image of coolness and refined taste in his paintings?
Inscriptions
隆慶庚午秋仿趙文敏筆. 五峰文伯仁 [印] 五峰山人; 文伯仁印
Provenance
?–1975: (Cheng Qi 程琦 [1911–1988], Tokyo, Japan, sold to Mr. and Mrs. Kelvin Smith) 1975–1985: The Kelvin Smith Collection, Cleveland, OH, given by Mrs. Kelvin [Eleanor Armstrong] Smith [1899–1998] to the Cleveland Museum of Art 1985–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
A Private World: Japanese and Chinese Art from the Kelvin Smith Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 14-November 13, 1988). Chinese Gallery 240a Rotation – August 2016. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (August 1, 2016-February 6, 2017).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Wen Boren (Chinese, 1502–1575)
- Date
- 1570
- Medium
- handscroll; ink and light color on paper
- Dimensions
- Overall: 26.7 x 183 cm (10 1/2 x 72 1/16 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- Chinese Art
- Credit line
- The Kelvin Smith Collection, given by Mrs. Kelvin Smith
- Accession no.
- 1985.370
More by Wen Boren 文伯仁 in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00009684
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