Bamboo

This ink painting of bamboo by an unknown artist is in the style of calligrapher, painter, and poet Guan Daosheng, who lived at the Yuan court and was patronized by the emperor. Her parents had given Guan the cultural education typically reserved for boys. When she became an adult, her contemporaries criticized her for painting in a style they considered inappropriately masculine. Bamboo, particularly, was considered a masculine subject. She responded defiantly: “To play with brush and ink is a masculine sort of thing to do, yet I made this painting. Wouldn’t someone say that I have transgressed? How despicable, how despicable.” Replicating a particular master’s style is an important form of pedagogy and cultural transmission in Chinese painting. This painting of a seemingly serene bamboo thicket in the style of Guan Daosheng attests to her unique stature as a woman artist and replicates her self-possessed choice of subject matter.

Album leaf