Bamboo in Rain; Bamboo in Wind (early 1500s): Art, History and Details

Bamboo in Rain; Bamboo in Wind (early 1500s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Genga (Japanese).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

East Asian paintings from China, Korea, and Japan were frequently conceived as sets of multiple images. These sets might have been composed for specific palace or temple rooms, or to portray a specific theme, such as the four seasons. Over time, the original intent of such sets is often lost through damage, changes in ownership, or a variety of other reasons. The identity of the artist can also be lost, but then, sometimes, retrieved. This pair of ink paintings has traditionally been labeled as Japanese and attributed to the 16th-century painter Genga. Since there are no seals or signature of the artist on the painting, this attribution was based on comparisons of brush style with paintings known to be by Genga. More recent study indicates that while the 16th century is an appropriate time frame for the pair, the precise cultural identity of the artist is not certain after all. The dark, eccentric shapes of the rocks and bamboo clusters and the dramatic tonal contrasts evident throughout the composition point to either Korean authorship or influence upon a Japanese painter of the period.

Object facts

• Title: Bamboo in Rain; Bamboo in Wind
• Date: early 1500s
• Creator attribution: Genga (Japanese)
• Culture: Japan, Muromachi period (1392–1573)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: hanging scroll; ink on silk
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1975.71

Collection credit

Gift in memory of Mrs. Samuel Savage

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1975.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 63, no. 2 (February 1976): 31–71.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.