The tip of a young bamboo plant leans into view from the left edge of this painting, as if blown there by the wind. Li Shan arranged his lengthy inscription around the leaves, creating a dynamic interplay between word and image. The inscription contains a long poem about the history of bamboo painting from the eleventh century to the artist’s own time. After describing all the great masters who preceded him, he boldly declares that “my own bamboo belongs to yet another school.”
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Artwork Details
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清 李鱓 墨竹圖 軸
Title:Ink bamboo
Artist:Li Shan (Chinese, 1686–ca. 1756)
Period:Qing dynasty (1644–1911)
Date:dated 1749
Culture:China
Medium:Hanging scroll; ink on paper
Dimensions:Image: 52 x 29 1/8 in. (132.1 x 74 cm) Overall with mounting: 99 1/2 x 32 1/8 in. (252.7 x 81.6 cm) Overall with knobs: 99 1/2 x 35 1/2 in. (252.7 x 90.2 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Bequest of John M. Crawford Jr., 1988
Object Number:1989.363.161
Inscription: Artist’s inscription and signature (15 columns in semi-cursive script)
One joint, two joints and yet another joint.[1] The virtue of Qu Yuan, Su Wu, Boyi and Shuqi.[2] One leaf, two leaves and yet another leaf. The rain god, the wind god and the grotto of Chang'e.[3] The phrase "without bamboo [life] is vulgar" has been received respectfully from Confucius down through the ages.[4] The old fishing pole is lost at the shore of the Wei River.[5] The bamboo with the blood and tears of Nüying and Ehuang had already withered [6] When, in his anger, the dragon founder [Qin Shihuang] turned the green hillside into bare red soil.[7] The young boys' temple was abandoned and the militarist aged.[8] Who clasped the green jade and grasped the tail feathers of the soaring phoenix? Dongpo's [Su Shi's] decaying trees tangle with the bamboo. Yuke's [Wen Tong's] chilly branch is ten thousand feet long. How elegant and high-spirited are Meihua's [Wu Zhen's] mouse-foot strokes! [The style of] Lady Tianshui [Guan Daosheng] is also extremely elegant. Her green dwarf bamboo sways gracefully with fragrance in the wind. Qingteng [Xu Wei] continued the lineage with his elegant style. Who says that the bamboo master sees not his successor? The style and principles of the master are followed by his disciples. Xiangnan [Zhao Bei], Suonan [Zheng Sixiao] and Riru [Zhu Sheng] burden others with their painting manuals Which now are broken up like split bamboo. Yu Zhiding from my native region is unlike Qieyuan [Gao Qipei]. Qieyuan is eccentric in style and Ding is ragged Like jade cut by a knife and with a worm-eaten stem. My bamboo belongs yet to another school. The hundred [zhang] of long dry rattan hang like snakes in autumn... Alas! Yesterday I was a youngster and now I can catch the dragon. In the twinkling of an eye, the clouds touch my head and my hair turns frosty grey.… Are these bamboo knots and leaves done recklessly?
Futang, Ao Daoren, Li Shan, in the ninth month of the fourteenth year of the Qianlong era (1749).
[1] The word jie in the first line, which is translated as "joint" here, bears a double meaning. On the one hand it describes the growth of the stem of the bamboo, with knots and sections. On the other hand, jie also means fidelity and integrity. Bamboo is thus traditionally taken as a symbol of virtue and integrity. It is in this sense that the second line of the poem elaborates the first. [2] The four were virtuous statesmen in the early history of China. Qu Yuan (343?‒277 B.C.) was a statesman of the State of Chu in the Warring States period who had fallen out of favor with the ruler. He exiled himself and committed suicide after the collapse of the state. Su Wu (140‒60 B.C.) was a Han dynasty general who refused to yield to the Xiongnu and was kept as hostage for nineteen years. Boyi and Shuqi were brothers who criticized the military action of Zhou Wenwang against the Shang dynasty right after the death of his father, viewing it as an act of disloyalty reflecting a lack of filial piety. Following the overthrow of the Shang dynasty and the ascension of Zhou Wenwang as Emperor of the Zhou, Boyi and Shuqi refused to partake of the food of the new dynasty. They lived in the mountains, ate ferns and later died of starvation. [3] Chang'e was a legendary figure of the Xia Dynasty (21st‒16th century B.C.). The wife of Houyi, who had received the pill of immortality from Xiwangmu, she stole and swallowed the pill, flew into the sky and became an immortal on the moon. See Huainanzi (Sibu congkan edition), vol. 24, ch. 6, p. 44. [4] This phrase from the famous poem “Yu Qian seng Luyun Xuan” (At the Luyun Xuan Studio of Monk Qian) by Su Shi (1037‒1101) was wrongly attributed to Confucius. A similar error was made in the inscription on another Ink Bamboo attributed to Li Shan (see Yang Xin, Yangzhou Baguai, Li Shan section, pl. 15) which makes reference to Confucius' love of bamboo as opposed to meat. [5] This refers to the story of Taigong Wang, an old man in his seventies, who fished at the shore of the Wei River for three days and three nights but could not catch a single fish. Later he assisted Wenwang of the State of Zhou to overthrow the corrupt last Emperor of the Shang Dynasty and establish a new dynasty, the Zhou. See Sima Qian, Shiji: Qi shijia (Ershiwushi edition), ch. 32, p. 1. [6] In legendary history Ehuang and Nüying were the daughters of Emperor Yao of the Tang Regime and the wives of Shun. In time Yao resigned in favor of Shun, who ascended to the throne and established the Yu Regime. When Shun died, the two ladies cried their hearts out and their tears were said to have stained the bamboo. They later both drowned in the Xiang River. [7] This refers to Qin Shihuang's furious revenge on the Goddesses of the Xiang River, Ehuang and Nüying, whom he believed to have caused the raging storm over the Xiang River as he was crossing it. He ordered the trees on the hillside chopped down and the red soil laid bare. See Sima Qian, Shiji: Qin Shihuang benji, ch. 6, p. 18. [8] This may refer to the young boys and girls who were sent across the ocean by Qin Shihuang to seek for him the elixir of immortality but never returned. See Sima Qian, Shiji: Qin Shihuang benji, ch. 6, p. 17.
[Translation with notes from Ju-hsi Chou and Claudia Brown, The Elegant Brush: Chinese Painting under the Qianlong Emperor 1735‒95. Exh. cat. Phoenix, AZ: Phoenix Art Museum, 1985, cat. no. 53, p. 167]
Gu Luofu 顧洛阜 (John M. Crawford Jr., 1913‒1988) Gu Luofu 顧洛阜 Hanguang Ge 漢光閣 Hanguang Ge Zhu Gu Luofu jiancang Zhongguo gudai shuhua zhi zhang 漢光閣主顧洛阜鑒藏中國古代書畫之章
John M. Crawford Jr. American, New York (until d. 1988; bequeathed to MMA)
Phoenix Art Museum. "The Elegant Brush: Chinese Painting under the Qianlong Emperors (1735–95)," August 27, 1985–October 1985.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Elegant Brush: Chinese Painting under the Qianlong Emperors (1735–95)," May 10–August 3, 1986.
Hong Kong Museum of Art. "The Elegant Brush: Chinese Painting under the Qianlong Emperors (1735–95)," October 17–November 30, 1986.
New York. China House Gallery. "The Eccentric Painters of Yangzhou," October 13, 1990–December 15, 1990.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Text and Image: The Interaction of Painting, Poetry, and Calligraphy," January 23–August 16, 1999.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Noble Virtues: Nature as Symbol in Chinese Art," September 10, 2022–January 29, 2023.
Shih Shou-ch'ien, Maxwell K. Hearn, and Alfreda Murck. The John M. Crawford, Jr., Collection of Chinese Calligraphy and Painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Checklist. Exh. cat. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1984, p. 51, cat. no. 171.
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