Xie-yi

Heaven Tree writes about bamboo:

Yet another familiar element of the concept of xie-yi is the conceit that an object drawn badly can nevertheless make for a good drawing as it may reveal somehow something important otherwise hidden from the eye: the object’s true form (an appealing idea if you are a mystic). And thus, a bamboo need not look like a bamboo (Ni Zan, when told his bamboo didn’t look like bamboo, replied: “total lack of resemblance isn’t easy to achieve”); and a good portrait may not need to carry much of a physical likeness if it carries somehow a spiritual likeness. (Whatever that is). This, too, has been heard in the West (and is exemplified in the way Bertolucci represents the work of a portrait sculptor in Stealing Beauty).