figure BM-1943-0215.30

Period:Qing dynasty Production date:18thC
Materials:bamboo
Technique:carved
Subjects:immortal tree/bush
Dimensions:Height: 25 centimetres

Description:
Miniature mountain of bamboo root, carved to look like a rock, with pine trees and an assembly of Immortals, some contemplating a scroll on which is painted the ‘ying yang’ symbol.
IMG


Comments:Rawson 1992:Small representations of mountains signified the retreat of the scholar from official life and offered the alternatives of a hermit’s existence or of individual expression in the face of strong government bureaucracy. Such mountains were also seen as a route to paradise. But the paradise beyond is not an outworldly paradise filled with angels, as described in the Western world; it is a land with a calmer, better life, a more archaich version of the present life. Daoism viewed the natural world, especially mountains, as the home of immortals. See also BM 1889.0306.4, BM 1991.1028.2 and BM 1930.1217.10.The art of bamboo carving was at its height in the mid to late Ming and early Qing dynasty (sixteenth to eighteenth centuries), when the Jiading and Jinling schools competed for supremacy in southeast China. Bamboo carving enjoyed a statues higher than many other similar crafts because bamboo, a relatively soft material, was workable by individual craftsmen and thus did not need to be carved in large workshops. It could, therefore, even be worked by scholars-officials. Indeed, almost all the great bamboo carvers of the Ming and Qing dynasties were also accomplished in the scholarly pursuits of painting and poetry, calligraphy and seal carving. The resulting pieces, such as this one, would have been placed on a scholar’s desk or in a cabinet, as an object of contemplation.