Bamboo and Rocks

In this hanging scroll, the cluster of bamboo stalks was painted by the artist Sun Di, while the rocky brook in the foreground was brushed by Lan Ying.  Each artist employed very different painting idioms, and the stylistic tension in the final work makes for a unique and complex example of the well-known Chinese genre of bamboo painting.

In China, collaborative painting such as this mostly originated in the leisure activity of amateur scholar-gentlemen painters, yet Sun Di and Lan Ying were both professional painters in the Chinese city of Hangzhou.  The circumstance under which this scroll was executed is unknown.   

Sun Di’s sharp, careful delineation of form betrays his skilled understanding of an ancient genre of ink bamboo painting that was first codified during the 10th century.  In this work, he has also employed the old-fashioned technique of outline drawing (called in Chinese, guole).

         
In contrast, Lan Ying uses a relaxed and expressive brush manner of bold, simple ink-laden strokes.  This is a stylistic mannerism normally associated with amateur-scholar painters of the period, for whom a subjective response to the inner forces of natural world was more valued than the faithful rendering of its outward, observable appearances as in the approach taken by Sun Di.