{"data":{"id":"8025","type":"artwork","attributes":{"id":8025,"topgoose_id":8092,"portfolio_id":null,"tms_id":8025,"title":"Bridge Study","display_artist_text":"Brice Marden","display_date":"1991","accession_number":"92.27","dimensions":"Sheet (Irregular): 26 × 34 3/8 in. (66 × 87.3 cm)","medium":"Ink, wash, and opaque watercolor on paper","department":"collection","classification":"Drawings","credit_line":"Purchase, with funds from the Drawing Committee and The Norman and Rosita Winston Foundation, Inc.","is_virtual":false,"is_portfolio":false,"portfolio_tms_id":null,"portfolio":null,"edition":null,"publication_info":"","description":"\u003cp\u003eBrice Marden, \u003cem\u003eBridge Study\u003c/em\u003e, 1991. Ink, wash, and opaque watercolor on paper, sheet (Irregular): 26 × 34 3/8 in. (66 × 87.3 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Drawing Committee and The Norman and Rosita Winston Foundation, Inc. 92.27. © Brice Marden/Artists Rights Society (ARS) New York\u003c/p\u003e","object_label":"\u003cp\u003eIn the drawing \u003ci\u003eBridge Study, \u003c/i\u003ea study for a painting of the same name, Brice Marden transformed the palm trees in the balmy Caribbean island of St. Bart’s into gestural calligraphy. Marden took his title from the Ming Dynasty poet Han Shan, whose poems describe a bridge that one crosses to meet the immortals. Writhing black and white organic lines spill across the surface and beyond the edges of the drawing. With swirling energy, the lines form interlocked organic shapes that render an almost figural character to the whole.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFrom 1989 to 1991, Marden worked on a series of drawings called \u003ci\u003eCold Mountain,\u003c/i\u003e visually related to \u003ci\u003eBridge Study \u003c/i\u003eand also based on poems by Han Shan. In making these works, he painted as one would read in Chinese—top to bottom, right to left—and reimagined the calligraphic page as an open but coherent, interlacing composition. He did not respond to any of the poet’s ideograms directly, just as he did not trace fronds of the Caribbean palms in \u003ci\u003eBridge Study\u003c/i\u003e, but echoes of nature and poetry run through the lines across the page.\u003c/p\u003e","ai_alt_text":"Chaotic looping black and white lines crisscross across a beige background.","alt_text":null,"visual_description":null,"on_view":false,"created_at":"2017-08-30T16:19:32.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-02-06T12:00:13.255-05:00","images":[{"id":99331,"url":"https://whitneymedia.org/assets/artwork/8025/92_27_cropped.jpg"}]},"relationships":{"artists":{"data":[{"id":"833","type":"artist"}]}}}}