Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Li Kan
Yuan official and bamboo painter from Dadu who rose to Minister of Personnel and wrote a detailed treatise on bamboo
A desk holds an unrolled sheet bearing three bold black ink strokes, with a rack of many brushes above it, a stone ink slab and ink stick, a porcelain bowl, a red lacquer box, a dish of red seal paste and a paperweight; a small seated figure shows through a round window onto bamboo.
Also known as Zi Zhongbin · Hao Xizhai Daoren
Li Kan, courtesy name Zhongbin, styled Xizhai Daoren, came from Jiqiu, in today's Beijing, and rose under the Yuan to Minister of Personnel and grand academician of the Jixian Hall. He first learned bamboo from the work of Wang Tingyun and his son, then took Wen Tong as his model and travelled to study living bamboo, painting it both in outline with colour and in ink. His Detailed Treatise on Bamboo (Zhupu xianglu) sets out painting methods together with the forms and kinds of bamboo. With Zhao Mengfu and Gao Kegong he was one of the best-known bamboo painters of the early Yuan. His hanging scroll Peace in the Four Seasons is in the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
Life and times
Dates c. 1245-1320 (birth also given as 1244)