painting of bamboo

Li Kan was a Chinese poet famous for his \'Book of the Bamboo\' where he described with enthusiasm a great many qualities of bamboo and other plants. He was also known for his painting of bamboo.
Amateur painters, from Su Shi and his friends on, had favored painting bamboo in ink monochrome, in part at least because those skilled in the use of the brush for calligraphy could master these genres relatively easily. Bamboo, plum, orchid, pine, and other plants had over the centuries acquired a rich range of associated meanings, largely from poetry. In Song and especially Yuan times, scholar painters began to systematically exploit these possibilities for conveying meaning through their pictures. Bamboo, because it is flexible and can withstand storms without breaking, is a symbol of survival in adversity.
Although bamboo leaves could be painted with single, calligraphic strokes, of the sort Wu Zhen used above, some literati painters also did bamboo with outline and fill techniques associated more with professional and court painters. Li Kan wrote a treatise on bamboo painting in which he criticized amateurs who thought that they could skip step-by-step learning and simply release their momentary feelings with their brush. Li Kan himself did both bamboo in ink monochrome in broad brushstrokes, and, like this one, in outline and fill manner, using colored washes.
This large monochrom ink bamboo scroll was executed with fluid brush stroks without outline. A large seal of Li Kan\'s studio " Xi Zhai" and the outstanding elegance links this work to Li Kan.