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Listening to the Bamboo
Wen Zhengminglate 1400s-1500s
The Cleveland Museum of Art
Cleveland, United States
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Details
- Title: Listening to the Bamboo
- Creator: Wen Zhengming (Chinese, 1470-1559)
- Date Created: late 1400s-1500s
- Physical Dimensions: Painting: 94.5 x 30.5 cm (37 3/16 x 12 in.); Overall with knobs: 202 x 55 cm (79 1/2 x 21 5/8 in.)
- Provenance: Qing imperial collection [seals of Emperor Qianlong, r. 1736–1795], Zhang Yanmou 張燕謀 [1846–1913], Wen Qi 文祁 [1900s], (Jean-Pierre Dubosc [1904–1988], Paris, France, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art), The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
- Type: Painting
- Rights: CC0
- External Link: https://clevelandart.org/art/1977.172
- Medium: hanging scroll, ink on sutra paper
- Original Title: 聽竹圖
- Inscriptions: Artist's inscription, signature, and 2 seals on the separate sheet of paper above the painting: In the empty studio sitting in deep loneliness;/ Like cool sound sending pure beauty,/ Or pendants swinging in the wind,/ Or a solitary qin suggesting running water./ Where is that sound from?/ The green poles in the courtyard,/ Clear and light like an echo,/ The sound and ears are in tune./ The sound of bamboo now very beautiful;/ My ears are also clear./ Who says the sound is in the bamboo?/ To know it depends on oneself./ A noble person is like a tall bamboo;/ A thin bamboo is like the noble man./ When the sound enters, the mind responds,/ Only one thing but artificially separated./ A bystander searching for the sound,/ But the sound can only be found in silence./ Otherwise I am still I,/ Bamboo is still bamboo./ Even if I live with bamboo every day,/ Still the music will be a thousand miles away./ Look at sound's most primeval source:/ Did it enter a zither or a lute? Composing a poem on Listening to the Bamboo. Written by Zhengming at the Ting yun guan. Wen Zhengming [2 seals] Wen Zhengming yin 文徵明印; Wei geng yin wu yi jiang 惟庚寅吾以降., [印] 文徵明印; 惟庚寅吾以降., 5 seals of the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736-95), [印] 金粟山藏經紙
- Department: Chinese Art
- Culture: China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
- Credit Line: Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund
- Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
- Accession Number: 1977.172
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