Bird on a Rock -- Illustration from the Ten Bamboo Studio Manual of Calligraphy and Painting (Shizhuzhai shuhua pu) before 1703

Curator: This is an illustration called "Bird on a Rock" from the Ten Bamboo Studio Manual of Calligraphy and Painting, by Hu Zhengyan, who lived in the late Ming Dynasty. Editor: It has such a delicate sensibility, a quietness. I’m immediately struck by the artist's capacity to evoke so much with so little. Curator: The Ten Bamboo Studio Manual was a pattern book, printed using a sophisticated process of multicolored woodblock printing. Think of it as the Instagram of its day, circulating styles and techniques. Editor: Right, breaking down the barriers between the elite and the everyday. You can really see that in the printing--how the materials are so central to what this image is. Curator: And yet, looking at it, I feel invited into a private, contemplative space. Editor: Agreed. It seems so simple, but there's such an intentional hand in its making. Curator: It's truly a marriage of craft and art. Editor: I'm glad we had a chance to pause with this one.