Bamboo and Rock, Hanging Scroll
Li Fangying
Qing Dynasty
- MEDIUM:Ink on paper
- FORMATS:Hanging scroll
- DIMENSIONS:Height 128 cm; Width 45.5 cm
Introduction
In the ninth year of the Qianlong reign(1744), at the age of forty-eight, Li Fangying painted this work in his hometown of Meihualou, Nantong, where he would spend the following years studying painting and calligraphy with close friends. Broad bamboo stalks are rendered in light ink, slender ones in dark ink, with leaves and the rocky slope likewise balanced in tone. Executed in just a few strokes, the composition is free and unrestrained, yet full of vitality.
In the upper left, Li inscribed his own verse:
‘For twenty years I’ve chased the jade-green bamboo,
Through winds and rains, in mists that drift and fade.
A passion carved so deep no cure could tame,
I’d mend the heavens from ten thousand mountain peaks.’
For Li, painting bamboo was not merely a study of its elegance and purity; it was also a medium to voice his concern for real life and the hardships of the people, with his lofty and unyielding spirit evident in every stroke.
This work was once in the collection of modern painter and connoisseur Wu Hufan and his wife, Pan Jingshu, and bears multiple seals of their ownership.
