Garden Flowers (c. 1540)
This conversation is connected to Garden Flowers (c. 1540).
Pink blossoms and long green leaves cascade from the upper left across a pale silk ground, with a gray garden rock at the base and delicate white flower clusters scattered among the branches. The painting is done in ink and light color wash on silk, the pink blossoms soft and slightly translucent, the leaves rendered in muted blue-green. The composition is loose and airy, with plenty of open space. This is a Chinese flower painting from the mid-16th century, working in the tradition of bird-and-flower painting that was one of the major genres of Chinese court and literati art.