Bamboo and Rocks

Description

Inscription: “Painted for presentation to Mr. Xiaozhu, the prudent prefect of my hometown, for his elegant enjoyment, in the 6th month of the dingwei year [1787], [by] junior Qian Zai at age eighty …”
Two collectors’ seals
Qian Zai was a poet, government official, and a painter who worked completely in the literati tradition. Qian favored an expressionistic style and painted well into his old age. One well-known line in a poem Qian reads: “My bosom is so void that it contains not even one single object. My impassioned brush, however, is saturated with the universe.” This work depicts several bamboo stalks by a small creek. Qian's swift and spontaneous calligraphic strokes animate the composition, which possesses a wonderful warmth and informal quality.
Winter 2015 Gallery Rotation
Qian Zai was a poet, official, and painter who worked in the literati (amateur scholar-artist) tradition. According to the colophon, Qian created this animated painting of bamboo by a creek at the age of eighty, as a gift for a friend. Like the orchid, bamboo is often used in Chinese art as a symbol of a scholar with integrity. Here the composition is animated by Qian’s swift brushwork and tension is generated by the cropping of the bamboo leaves at the painting’s edge. A line from Qian’s poem inscribed on the painting reads: “my bosom is so void that it contains not even one single object. My impassioned brush, however, is saturated with the universe.”