Bamboo in wind and rain

Bamboo in wind and rain

Shitao (Zhu Ruoji)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Shitao, one of the most outstanding landscape masters of his time, was also passionately in love with bamboo painting. On this monumental work, he quotes a description by Su Che (1039–1112) of Wen Tong (1018–1079), the Northern Song bamboo painter: "He dallies amid bamboo in the morning, stays in the company of bamboo in the evening, drinks and eats amid the bamboo, and rests and sleeps in the shade of bamboo; having observed all the different aspects of the bamboo, he then exhausts all the bamboo's many transformations." Accompanying Shitao's signature is his seal, which quotes a saying by Wen Tong: "How can I live one day without this gentleman!" During the eighteenth,century, Shitao's style of bamboo painting was practiced by members of the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bamboo in wind and rainBamboo in wind and rainBamboo in wind and rainBamboo in wind and rainBamboo in wind and rain

The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.