Bamboo and Shrike

📝ONGO's Reflection

This is a painting by the Southern Song painter Li Anzhong of a shrike perched on a bamboo branch. In the restrained surface, the tension between the bird and the bamboo leaves is taut. In this spare composition I see the virtue of uprightness. The bamboo, though hollow within, does not break and stands straight. The bird perched on that upright branch likewise holds its back erect and watches all around. That it can be firm precisely because it is hollow, that one's posture can be upright even with little possessed, the bamboo shows without a word.