Past Exhibitions
- Chinese Ink Bamboo Paintings
- February 21, 2017 - March 20, 2017
Mo zhu (literally “ink bamboo”) is a term for monochromatic painting of bamboo plants. The genre was popularized by the painters Wen Tong (1018–1079) and Su Shi (1037–1101) during China’s Northern Song dynasty (960–1127). Bamboo, which grows straight and upright with vertebrae-like nodes, was seen as a symbol of the ideal gentleman, virtuous and of unyielding moral principle. Bamboo became a popular subject for both the pastime of informal painting, known as mo xi (“ink play”), and for more formal paintings presented as gifts. Because the forms of “ink bamboo" are simple, they are said to convey what is in the heart of the painter. In this gallery, you can vividly imagine the thoughts of Chinese literati of centuries past as embodied in their ink bamboo creations.
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