Bamboo and Rocks

Artist Wang Fu (Chinese, 1362 - 1416)

DateMing dynasty (1368-1644)

MediumHandscroll; ink on paper

DimensionsOverall: 14 × 91 1/2 inches (35.56 × 232.41 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number58-8

On View

Not on view

Collections

East Asian Art

Terms

Exhibition History

A World of Flowers, Philadelphia Museum of Art, May 2-June 9, 1963.

Oriental art exhibition, Washington University, St. Louis, January 23-March 4, 1966.

Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting, Nelson-Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, November 7, 1980 – January 4, 1981; The Cleveland Museum of Art, February 7 – April 5, 1981; The Asia Society, December 3, 1981 – February 28, 1982; Tokyo National Museum, October 4 – November 17, 1982, no. 118.

Expressions of Brush and Ink: Literati and Chan (Zen) Painting in China and Japan, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, January 13 – August 8, 2010.

Gallery Label

Bamboo has long been a key theme in Chinese literati culture. Because it is upright and bends in the wind but does not break, it came to symbolize the integrity and resilience of the Confucian scholar, while its hollow interior suggested his humility. Of all the subjects in Chinese painting, bamboo comes closest to calligraphy. Because each leaf and nodule is often represented by a single brushstroke, any weakness or hesitation is immediately exposed. Wang Fu brilliantly captures the rustling movement of bamboo, yet ultimately the success of this painting derives not from its faithful depiction of its subject, but from the subtle interplay of ink tones and semi-abstract patterns.

Provenance

Ko Nagao;

Kozo Harada;

Purchased from Kozo Harada by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1958.

Published References

Ross E. Taggart, George L. McKenna, and Marc F. Wilson, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. II, Art of the Orient. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 61.

Wai-Kam Ho, et al., Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting: The Collections of the Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, and The Cleveland Museum of Art. (The Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, c1980), 142-144, no. 118.

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 355, fig. 222.

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