Which of the Following Are Japanese Plums or Winter Plums Not Symbolic of in Chinese Art?

Amateur painters, from Su Shi and his friends on, had favored painting bamboo and flowering plum in ink monochrome, in part at to the lowest degree because those skilled in the use of the brush for calligraphy could master these genres relatively easily.  Bamboo, plum, orchid, pino, and other plants had over the centuries acquired a rich range of associated meanings, largely from verse.  In Vocal and specially Yuan times, scholar painters began to systematically exploit these possibilities for carrying meaning through their pictures.

Orchids, ever since Qu Yuan in the Warring States Menstruation, had been associated with the virtues of the high-principled man.   The orchid is delicate, small, just its fragrance penetrates into subconscious places.

Zheng Sixiao, the painter of this moving-picture show, did the poem on the right, a friend the one on the left.

Note that in that location is no basis in this painting.  When asked why he omitted it, Zheng said that the barbarians had stolen the footing.

Zheng Sixiao (1241-1318), Orchid

SOURCE: Chugoku kaiga: torokuhen , Chinese Paintings in the Osaka Municipal Museum of Fine Arts (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun, 1975), pl. 46.  Collection of the Osaka Municipal Museum of Fine Arts.  Handscroll, ink on paper, 25.7 x 42.iv cm.

The artist here has inscribed a poem on the painting that refers to the coolness and refreshing quality of the autumn melon for one who is experiencing the full rut of summertime.

Because of this poem, well-educated viewers of this painting would think of literary references to melons, giving the painting deeper pregnant.

Just from looking at this painting, would y'all have guessed that it carried any larger meaning?

MORE:  The artist, Qian Xuan was a loyalist who became, in event, a professional painter to support himself.  He did many paintings of flowers, probably because there was a good market for them. Stylistically, still, he disassociated himself from professional person painters who continued the tradition of Song court painters in doing decorative, richly colored paintings.

Qian Xuan (ca. 1235- after 1301), Autumn Melon

SOURCE:  James Cahill, Ge jiang shan se - Hills Beyond A River: Chinese Painting of the Yuan Dynasty, 1279-1368, Taiwan edition (Taipei: Shitou gufen youxian gongsi, 1994), pl. 1.viii, p. 29. Drove of the National Palace Museum, Taiwan.  Hanging whorl, lite colors on paper, 63.1 10 xxx cm.

This painting has all three of the "three friends of winter," pino, plum, and bamboo.

Bamboo, considering it is flexible and tin withstand storms without breaking, is a symbol of survival in arduousness.

Zhao Mengjian (1199? - 1264 AD), Three Friends of Winter

SOURCE:  Qin Xiaoyi, ed., Songdai shuhua ceye mingpin tezhan - Famous Anthology Leaves of the Sung Dynasty (Taipei: Guoli gugong bowuyuan pianzhuan weiyuanhui, 1995), pl. 66, p. 222.  Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taibei.  Album leaf, ink on newspaper, 32.ii x 53.four cm

For a closer view, click here.  [In the guide, below]

What practice y'all recall pine and plum symbolize?

ANSWER:  Pine, because it can grow in poor, rocky soil, and stays greenish even in the worst of the winter, symbolizes survival through difficult circumstances.  Plum, because it blooms in wintertime and has frail pure white blossoms, stands for both the purity of the scholar too as beauty amid harsh weather.  Plum, bamboo, and pino taken together evoke the Confucian virtue of maintaining one's integrity even in the most adverse atmospheric condition.

Zhao Mengjian (1199? - 1264 Ad), Three Friends of Winter, particular

SOURCE:  Zhao Mengjian (1199? - 1264 AD), 3 Friends of Winter, in Qin Xiaoyi, ed., Songdai shuhua ceye mingpin tezhan - Famous Anthology Leaves of the Sung Dynasty (Taipei: Guoli gugong bowuyuan pianzhuan weiyuanhui, 1995), pl. 66, p. 222.  Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taibei.  Particular of album leafage, ink on paper, 32.2 x 53.4 cm

Annotation the inscriptions on the painting beneath, added by scholars who viewed it.

Exercise you call back the artist left space for the inscriptions?

Wu Zhen (1280-1354), Plum and Bamboo

SOURCE:  Fu Xinian, ed., Zhongguo meishu quanji, Huihua bian 5: Yuandai huihua (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1989), pl. 64, p. 93. Drove of the Liaoning Provincial Museum.  Handscroll, ink on newspaper, 29.vi ten 79.8 cm

SOME THOUGHTS:  By this signal, information technology was very common for scholars to write inscriptions on paintings, either ones they had but seen painted, or old ones in their friends' collections.  Therefore, painters could accept anticipated that empty space would later exist filled by inscriptions.  However, it is not the case that all paintings were inscribed  until all empty space was filled, so an artist could non assume the add-on of inscriptions and would have to come with a limerick that would work whether or not inscriptions were added later on.

Wu Zhen, the painter of this rock and bamboo, was a true recluse, who rarely left his hometown and made his living by practicing fortune-telling and selling paintings.

Wu Zhen (1280-1354), Old Tree, Bamboo and Rock

SOURCE:  Fu Xinian, ed., Zhongguo meishu quanji, Huihua bian 5: Yuandai huihua (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1989), pl. 63, p. 92. Drove of the National Palace Museum, Beijing.  Hanging curlicue, ink on silk, 53 10 69.8 cm

Although bamboo leaves could be painted with unmarried, calligraphic strokes, of the sort Wu Zhen used above, some literati painters as well did bamboo with outline and fill up techniques associated more than with professional person and court painters.

Do you retrieve the mode the bamboo was painted afflicted the manner people interpreted its meaning?

Compare this bamboo painting to the ones in a higher place and below in terms of brushwork and composition.

MORE:  Li Kan wrote a treatise on bamboo painting in which he criticized amateurs who thought that they could skip step-by-step learning and only release their momentary feelings with their brush. Li Kan himself did both bamboo in ink monochrome in broad brushstrokes, and, like this one, in outline and fill up mode, using colored washes.

Li Kan (1254-1320), Bamboo and Rock

SOURCE:  Fu Xinian, ed., Zhongguo meishu quanji, huihua bian v: Yuandai huihua (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1989), pl. 13, p. nineteen. Collection of the National Palace Museum, Beijing.  Hanging scroll, ink and colors on silk, 185.5 x 153.7 cm.

Tan Zhirui (Yuan), Bamboo and Rocks

SOURCE:  Tan Zhirui (Yuan), Bamboo and Rocks, in James Cahill, Ge jiang shan se - Hills Beyond a River: Chinese Painting of the Yuan Dynasty, 1279-1368, Taiwan edition (Taipei: Shitou chuban gufen youxian gongsi, 1994), pl. iv.16, p. 185. Collection of the Freer Gallery of Art.  Hanging gyre, ink on paper, 63 x 33.5 cm.

Why would scholar painters paint brightly colored flowers like peonies in different tones of ink?

Wang Qian (Yuan), Peony

SOURCE:  Fu Xinian, ed., Zhongguo meishu quanji, Huihua bian 5: Yuandai huihua (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1989), pl. fourscore, p. 117. Collection of the National Palace Museum, Beijing.  Handscroll, ink on paper, 37.7 x 61.vi cm.

Ane of the qualities sought by scholar painters was simplicity, plainness, understatement, seen as the contrary of showy, flashy paintings. Paintings of plums oftentimes were done using very simple strokes.

This is just a small particular of a painting of a blossoming co-operative by Wang Mian.  To see the entire painting, click here.

Wang Mian (1287-1359), Ink Plum

SOURCE:  Fu Xinian, ed., Zhongguo meishu quanji, Huihua bian 5: Yuandai huihua (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1989), pl. 94, p. 139. Collection of the Shanghai Museum.  Hanging coil, ink on paper, 68 ten 26 cm.

Wang Mian inscribed six poems on the painting, and four contemporaries added other poems.

How would this painting of branches of a plum tree in bloom have rated on a scale from flashy to apparently?

Three artists collaborated to paint this painting.  Gu, Zhang, and Yang did the painting together, then Ni Can, some fourth dimension after, added the rock and the inscription in the upper right.

Would you have been able to tell that this painting was done past several different hands?

What would artists take gotten out of  collaborating to brand a single painting?

Gu An, Zhang Shen, and Ni Zan with an inscription past Yang Weizhen, Winter Bamboo and Rock

SOURCE:  James Cahill, Ge jiang shan se - Hills Beyond a River: Chinese Painting of the Yuan Dynasty, 1279-1368, Taiwan edition (Taipei: Shitou chubanshe fen youxian gongsi, 1994), pl. 4.26, p, 200. Drove of the National Palace Museum, Taiwan.  Hanging coil, ink on paper, 93.five x 52.3 cm.

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Source: https://depts.washington.edu/chinaciv/painting/tschyuan.htm

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