{
"data": {
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"accession_number": "1977.172",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Listening to the Bamboo (\u807d\u7af9\u5716), late 1400s-1500s. Imitator of Wen Zhengming (Chinese, 1470\u20131559). Hanging scroll, ink on sutra paper; 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.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund, 1977.172",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Listening to the Bamboo",
"title_in_original_language": "\u807d\u7af9\u5716",
"creation_date": "late 1400s-1500s",
"creation_date_earliest": 1500,
"creation_date_latest": 1559,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"China, Ming dynasty (1368\u20131644)"
],
"technique": "hanging scroll, ink on sutra paper",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Chinese Art",
"collection": "ASIAN - Hanging scroll",
"type": "Painting",
"measurements": "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.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall with knobs": {
"height": 2.02,
"height_inch": 79,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.5,
"width": 0.55,
"width_inch": 21,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.625
},
"overall": {
"height": 2.02,
"height_inch": 79,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.5,
"width": 0.463,
"width_inch": 18,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.25
},
"painting": {
"height": 0.945,
"height_inch": 37,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.1875,
"width": 0.305,
"width_inch": 12,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
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"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "Artist's inscription, signature, and 2 seals on the separate sheet of paper above the painting:\n\nIn the empty studio sitting in deep loneliness; \nLike cool sound sending pure beauty, \nOr pendants swinging in the wind, \nOr a solitary qin suggesting running water. \nWhere is that sound from? \nThe green poles in the courtyard, \nClear and light like an echo, \nThe sound and ears are in tune. \nThe sound of bamboo now very beautiful; \nMy ears are also clear. \nWho says the sound is in the bamboo? \nTo know it depends on oneself. \nA noble person is like a tall bamboo; \nA thin bamboo is like the noble man. \nWhen the sound enters, the mind responds, \nOnly one thing but artificially separated. \nA bystander searching for the sound, \nBut the sound can only be found in silence. \nOtherwise I am still I, \nBamboo is still bamboo. \nEven if I live with bamboo every day, \nStill the music will be a thousand miles away. \nLook at sound's most primeval source: \nDid it enter a zither or a lute?\n\nComposing a poem on Listening to the Bamboo. Written by Zhengming at the Ting yun guan. Wen Zhengming \n[2 seals] Wen Zhengming yin \u6587\u5fb5\u660e\u5370; Wei geng yin wu yi jiang \u60df\u5e9a\u5bc5\u543e\u4ee5\u964d.",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"inscription": "[\u5370] \u6587\u5fb5\u660e\u5370; \u60df\u5e9a\u5bc5\u543e\u4ee5\u964d.",
"inscription_translation": "2 artist's seals on middle right edge of the painting: Wen Zhengming yin; Wei geng yin wu yi jiang [It was in the gengyin year when I was born.]",
"inscription_remark": "In his 2015 Silent Poetry catalogue, Ju-hsi Chou wrote that if one believes the seal, it can give a rough indication of the date for this painting. \n\"Wen Zhengming's birth year was 1470, which fell in the gengyin year. Yet he did not carve this seal to celebrate his first genyin year, but his second one, i.e. 1530, after he had lived a full cycle of sixty years and was looking toward a long life beyond. In those days of pre-modern China, to live beyond sixty years as as rare as it was enviable.\"",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"inscription": "5 seals of the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736\u201395)",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"inscription": "[\u5370] \u91d1\u7c9f\u5c71\u85cf\u7d93\u7d19",
"inscription_translation": "Seal (once on the calligraphy section and once on the painting): Jin su shan cang jing zhi",
"inscription_remark": "These seals indicate that the painting and calligraphy are on the famous sutra paper from Mt. Jinsu.",
"sortorder": 4
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "The Art of Wen Cheng-ming. University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI (January 25-February 29, 1976); Asia House Gallery, New York, NY (April 7-June 7, 1976)",
"opening_date": "1976-01-25T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (November 7, 1980-January 4, 1981); The Cleveland Museum of Art (February 10-March 29, 1981); Tokyo National Museum (October 4-November 17, 1982).",
"opening_date": "1981-02-10T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Main Asian Rotation (Gallery 119). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (July 16-October 28, 2003).",
"opening_date": "2003-07-16T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Qing imperial collection [seals of Emperor Qianlong, r. 1736\u20131795]",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": null,
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "Zhang Yanmou \u5f35\u71d5\u8b00 [1846\u20131913]",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": null,
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "Wen Qi \u6587\u7941 [1900s]",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": null,
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"description": "(Jean-Pierre Dubosc [1904\u20131988], Paris, France, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "?-1977",
"sortorder": 4
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1977-",
"sortorder": 5
}
],
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"former_accession_numbers": [],
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"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": null,
"external_resources": {
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"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60473313"
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"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1977.172-listening-to-the-bam"
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"citations": [
{
"citation": "Edwards, Richard. The Art of Wen Cheng-Ming (1470-1559). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, 1976.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: cat. no. 33",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Hironobu Kohara \u53e4\u539f\u5b8f\u4f38. Shin Shu\u0304, Bun Cho\u0304mei [ \u6c88\u5468 \u6587\u5fb4\u660e = Shen Zhou, Wen Zhengming]. To\u0304kyo\u0304: Chu\u0304o\u0304 Ko\u0304ronsha, 1978.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 168, pl. 62",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Ho, Wai-kam, Sherman E. Lee, Laurence Sickman, and Marc F. Wilson. Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting: The Collections of the Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1980.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: cat. no. 173, pp. 218-220",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Laozi \u8001\u5b50 and Stephen Mitchell, translator. Tao te ching \u9053\u5fb7\u7ecf. London: Frances Lincoln, 1999.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: cover, p. 64, p. 116",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Chou, Ju-hsi and Anita Chung. Silent poetry: Chinese paintings from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 270-278",
"url": null
}
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"updated_at": "2026-09-09 11:11:07.123000"
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