Wen Tong (文同), the First Master of Ink Bamboo

There is a Chinese idiom, “there are whole bamboos in his heart” (胸有成竹), meaning that one has a well-thought-out plan in his mind before he begin to do something. This idiom is related to a famous literati in Song Dynasty named Wen Tong.

Wen Tong(1019–1079) lived in the middle of the Northern Song dynasty (960—1127). During his lifetime, he was famous for his poems, songs of chu, cursive script and paintings, especially for his ink bamboo painting.

Ink bamboo is an important subject of Chinese literati painting. Although the origin of ink bamboo painting can be traced back to the Tang dynasty, the rise of literati ink bamboo painting can be traced back to Wen Tong and Su Shi.

To draw bamboo, someone must love bamboo first, the affection of Wen Tong to bamboo and be familiar with arrived crazy degree. Su Shi once said that “wherever Wen Tong goes, the poem is in his mouth and the bamboo is in his hand”, “Traveling with bamboo in the morning, making friend with bamboo, dining between bamboos and have rest in the shadow of bamboo.”. Wen Tong called bamboo as Mr. Ink, planted it, poetized it, painting it and even named his house by bamboo.

Those who take bamboo as companions mostly admire the general temperament of a gentleman. Su Shi once highly praised the character of Wen Tong, saying that his literary talent, calligraphy and painting are only the little part of his noble character.

The bamboo paintings before Wen Tong are mostly painted with double hooks and only used as background. Wen Tong painted the bamboo pole, node, branch and leaf with a single brush of ink. He first used the leaves of deep ink as the front and the leaves of light ink as the back.

Wen Tong’s works were very rare even in theYuan dynasty, and it is now confirmed that the work of Wen Tong is the “the Ink Bamboo” preserved in the national Palace Museum in Taipei. In this painting, bamboo leaves and bamboo branches hanged down from the upper left, and then go to the upper right, a strong vitality hidden in the twisted bamboo.

Another work was supposed painted by Wen Tong, “the Evening Mist”, preserved in the metropolitan museum of art, is famous for the calligraphy of the postscript on the end of Huang Tingjian. In the painting, the brush strokes are strong and smooth, is the same way as the bamboo painting.

Wen Tong’s influence on the history of Ink Bamboo was mostly because of Su Shi’s praise. Su shi is Wen Tong’s best friend. Many of Wen Tong’s words, deeds and works are spread by his description.There is a scholar once said: Su Shi’s ink bamboo painting skills benefited from Wen Tong, but Wen Tong and bamboo can not be separated from Su Shi’s praise. During promoting ink bamboo painting, Su Shi actually spread his own spirit at the same time. In the mind of the post-world people, Su Shi almost became an abstract literary idol similar to Tao Yuanming. The so-called influence of “writing with ink and bamboo” on later generations is largely reflected in Su Shi’s thought. However, because of the origin of Su Shi’s ink bamboo from Wen Tong, the painting of bamboo by later generations, even though it was actually under the influence of Su Shi, is often considered as a master of Wen Tong. Some of the later painters did not even see the works of Wen and Su, but said their paintings is from the copy of Wen and Su. Therefore, compared with painting skills, they inherited more of the spirit of wen su’s thought.

Wen Tong (文同), the First Master of Ink Bamboo

Leave a Reply Cancel reply