Eagles
Unknown Artist
1368–1644
Medium
Ink and color on silk panel
Dimensions
painting: 167.2 × 98.4 cm · overall framed: 189.3 × 114.5 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
Chinese Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust
Accession Number
1915.710
About this artwork
Two eagles, painted in fine brushwork, perch on top of rocks surrounded by water, flowering camellia, and other vegetation, brushed in sweeping and broad strokes. Among birds, a favorite subject in Chinese painting, depictions of eagles can be traced back to at least the fourth century. Due to dramatic sociopolitical changes during the foreign-ruled Yuan (1279–1368) and native Ming dynasties, an elaborate symbolic language of the eagle developed. It can represent a vicious attacker, a courageous...