Returning to the Village in a Rainstorm

This scroll depicts a wind- and rainswept landscape with figures in the countryside struggling against a late summer monsoon rainstorm. Such weather was familiar to residents of the lower Yangzi delta. Xie Shichen spent most of his life in the Suzhou area. Details of his career are scant, but his surviving works suggest that he made his living as a professional painter. This painting conveys drama and anecdotal observations, characteristic of Zhe school paintings, such as the one by Lü Wenying, CMA 1970.76 [https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1970.76].