Twigs with Leaves and Blossom
-
About the work
- Location
-
Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection
Landscape paintings and detailed studies of flowers and leaves were common subjects in Chinese painting. Natural forms were represented, not as direct copies from nature, but as a combination of the appearance of the object and the artist’s emotional response to it. In depicting natural forms, Chinese artists considered themselves unrestricted by visual accuracy or by principles dictating colour, perspective, anatomy, texture or relative size. Nature was seen rather as a source of components from which the artist was able to build their own world. In ‘The Art of Chinese Painting’ (2006), Lin Ci describes the particular attributes associated with certain plants in the paintings dating from the late Song dynasty to the Yuan dynasty (c.1200 to 1368):
‘The plum blossom, orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemum were used as favourite painting topics, and implicitly explored the common accepted characteristics associated with these plants. Orchid and bamboo represented moral loftiness and plum blossom and chrysanthemum represented characteristics of principles and justice.’
-
Explore
- Places
- Subjects
- Chinese School, twig, leaf, blossom
- Materials & Techniques
- silk, paper (as artists material), watercolour (as artists materials), ink, scroll (as object name), hanging scroll, Painted scroll
-
Details
- Artist
-
Chinese unknown
- Title
- Twigs with Leaves and Blossom
- Date
- Medium
- Watercolour and ink on paper on silk/paper scroll
- Dimensions
- height: 192.00 cm, width: 60.50 cm
- Acquisition
- Purchased November 1963
- Provenance
- Purchased in Hong Kong, November 1963
- GAC number
- 6391