# Bamboo in Moonlight

- Date: 1500s
- Medium: hanging scroll; ink on paper
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: Painting only: 85.2 x 33.5 cm (33 9/16 x 13 3/16 in.); Overall: 163 x 43.2 cm (64 3/16 x 17 in.)
- Culture: Korea, Joseon dynasty (1392–1910)
- Credit line: Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/1987.186)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1987.186/1987.186_web.jpg
- Who can see it: Little Ones profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

This painting depicts the full moon shining through a stand of bamboo, and for Joseon literati it would have conveyed the sense of life in harmony with nature to which they aspired. As one of the "four gentlemen" along with plum trees, orchids, and chrysanthemums, bamboo, which has immense flexibility, allowing it bent to extremes without breaking—symbolize a gentleman's noble virtue. Here, the painter depicted the shining moon rising above a bamboo tree to create a meditative nightly scene.