Sumi-e Bamboo Painting

Works of bamboo painting, usually in ink, are a popular subject in East Asian painting. In a work of bamboo painting in ink, a skilled artist will paint a bamboo stalk or group of stalks with leaves. The paintings show contrast between the foreground and background. They

also show textures of the stalks and the leaves. Bamboo painting is a way for the painter to demonstrate mastery with an inkpot and a brush.

Bamboo paintings are of bamboo plants painted with brushes made of bamboo.

Bamboo was a very important plant to the Japanese people. It was strong and flexible and useful. You could build with it and make many useful objects with it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGQriYl0r80

There are so-called “bamboo painters” who all their lives paint only bamboo. The bamboo is strong, upright, and dependable. He may

bend with the wind, the storm and the rain, but he never breaks. He is a true gentleman of courage and endurance (Ju 1989).