Landscape1368–1644 · Study 1917.94

Context from the museum

This handscroll by an unnamed painter rewards close looking. Among water-washed rocks, reeds are drawn so gracefully and true that they rustle across the silk surface of this painting. Beyond are empty spaces where sky and water meet without horizon. Then distant mountains rise, bristling with stunted growth, and at their feet is a farmstead with its homely barnyard. A woman with a bucket in one hand leads a little child down to the rickety landing where the ducks begin swimming toward her. From a gateway, a small dog charges out in fury. A boy has let his fishing line down from an overhanging willow. Two men stand by a purse-net dropped from an upright stake. Another net is being pulled aboard a boat in mid-stream. None of these figures is more than three-quarters of an inch high, and yet each has its poise and its individuality as clear as if it were colossal bronze. If one fords the river, there are cliffs and sloping flat rocks, and then, perhaps best of all, waterfalls spurting down clefts in the mountain wall to join and flow in a turbulent brook below the bridge where the farmer boys are crossing. More trees and then an inlet, perhaps an arm of some great lake, along whose shore the farms dwindle until a point of land becomes a cloud.

Museum description reproduced from its CC0 open-access record. Read the original catalog entry.

Read the dimensions before the image

The selected overall measurement for Landscape is 282.1 cm wide and 32.4 cm high, equivalent to approximately 111.1 × 12.8 inches. Dividing width by height gives a format ratio of 8.71:1. The rectangular bounding area is 0.91 square meters; it describes the measured footprint, not the amount of paint or the monetary value.

On an illustrative 300 cm wall, the recorded width occupies 94.0% of the span before adding a frame. A centered placement leaves approximately 8.9 cm on each side before adding a frame. These are calculations by Physical Art For Crypto using museum measurements. They are not the museum’s display recommendations.

Questions to bring to your own collection

With Landscape in view, identify one feature you can point to, then distinguish what the museum records from your personal response. Keep its medium, handscroll; ink and slight color on silk, in your notes when comparing contemporary works.

• Which part of this horizontal composition catches your eye first?
• Would a 282.1 cm width still suit the space after allowing for furniture and a frame?
• What surface detail would you need to see in person or in a close photograph?