Bamboo on a Stormy Day

The emblematic characteristics of the scholar-gentleman, including resiliency and flexibility, are symbolized here by the bamboo plant that bends but does not break in adverse conditions. Bamboo, the “ink gentleman,” offered endless possibilities for expressive experimentation with ink tonality and brushwork to literati painters. Here, Taiga intentionally raised his brush as he painted to leave kinetic passages of un-inked paper as he formed the arched stalk of the wind-buffeted bamboo stem, set against a pastel blue ground suggestive of the muted hibernal light of a stormy winter day.