Banana Leaf
Artist
Chang Dai-chien
(Zhang Daqian; Chinese, 1899 - 1983)
Date1962
MaterialsInk on paper
DimensionsH. 95 1/4 in x W. 38 3/8 in, H. 241.9 cm x W. 97.5 cm (overall); H. 56 1/8 in x W. 28 1/2 in, H. 142.6 cm x W. 72.4 cm (image)
Credit LineGift of the artist
Object numberB75D2
DepartmentChinese Art
ClassificationsPainting
On View
Not on viewSigned“季爰”（朱文方印）、“大千唯印大幸”（朱文方印）。
Jiyuan (square relief), Daqian weiyin daxin (square relief).
Inscribed“ ‘手種芭蕉滿屋餘，清陰如水政須渠。殷勤囑付休輕剪，留與衰翁學草書。’ 壬寅四月朔一日，大千居士爰。”
‘Hand-planted banana tree leaves are full of the house, and their shadows bring coolness as if water running through the canal. I frequently reminded people not to cut those leaves, so that they could be saved for the old man to practice calligraphy of cursive writing.’ Hermit Daqian Yuan, on the first day of the fourth lunar month of the renyin year (1962).
More InformationThis elegant work balances a poetic inscription that places the reader inside a humid literati garden—with Chang Dai-chien’s note encouraging us to accept responsibility for tending the banana trees that encircled his house in Brazil—alongside a loose, reductive rendering of a banana tree with its leaves in various stages of unfurling. One fresh shoot projects skyward and is still tightly wound, while the broadly painted, fully extended leaves are sketched quickly with a big brush.
