Bamboo in Moonlight

Description

This painting depicts the full moon shining through a stand of bamboo, and for Joseon literati it would have conveyed the sense of life in harmony with nature to which they aspired. As one of the "four gentlemen" along with plum trees, orchids, and chrysanthemums, bamboo, which has immense flexibility, allowing it bent to extremes without breaking—symbolize a gentleman's noble virtue. Here, the painter depicted the shining moon rising above a bamboo tree to create a meditative nightly scene.

Provenance

(Kenzaburo Marui, Osaka, Japan, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) (?–1987); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1987–)

Bamboo in Moonlight

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1500s

Accession Number

1987.186

Medium

hanging scroll; ink on paper

Dimensions

Painting only: 85.2 x 33.5 cm (33 9/16 x 13 3/16 in.); Overall: 163 x 43.2 cm (64 3/16 x 17 in.)

Classification

Painting

Museum

The Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, United States

Credit Line

Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund