Garden Flowers

Garden Flowers

After Chen Chun  (Chinese, 1483–1544)

Period:

Ming dynasty (1368–1644)

Date:

dated 1540

Culture:

China

Medium:

Album of sixteen paintings and one leaf of calligraphy; ink and color on paper

Dimensions:

Image (six leaves): 12 13/16 x 22 9/16 in. (32.5 x 57.3 cm) Image (ten leaves): 13 1/8 x 22 3/4 in. (33.3 x 57.8 cm)

Classification:

Paintings

Following Shen Zhou’s (1427–1509) example of treating still-life painting as uninhibited “ink plays,” Chen Chun strove to turn his flower paintings into spontaneous “idea writings.” Realistic flower paintings had been a popular subject since at least the tenth century, and Chen Chun was perhaps the greatest exponent of this genre in his time. This album, with a rich variety of spring blossoms, treats flowers not merely as botanical specimens but also as inevitable reminders of the brevity of life, beauty, and material existence.