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群芳竞秀——苏州博物馆藏明清花鸟主题特展

花匠小妙招
2025-01-16 14:18

序

梅花风

楝花风

二十四番花信风

夫阴阳一嘘而敷荣，一吸而揫敛，葩华秀茂之见于百卉众木者，乃不可胜记。每当腊尽春回，东风乍起，梅李桃杏、玉兰山茶之类，即次第而开；墨燕黄鹂、画眉杜鹃之属，即嘤嘤其鸣。其生机盎然之象、灵动活泼之态，皆足以兴诗人之吟咏、引哲士之格物也。

昔人云：明窗净几，描写景物，名花折枝，想其态度绰约，枝叶宛转，向日舒笑，迎风欹斜，含烟弄雨，初开残落。布置笔端，不觉妙合天趣，自是一乐。

“黄家富贵、徐熙野逸”，自五代北宋以后，花鸟为专门画科。其后风格各异、流派纷呈。大抵而言：宋人以工笔赋采见长；元人以工笔水墨标新；明代石田、六如偶以山水笔法出之而别出新意；至青藤、白阳、八大则参以草法，纵横写意，兴到笔随。入清以后，南田、小山之清丽；扬州、海上之放逸，皆各有千秋。

苏州博物馆此次明清花鸟主题特展，特别遴选馆藏花卉名家计34件展出，形制以卷、册、轴为主，风格则工笔写意、没骨双钩等皆备：观者览之，既可赏花随指放之妙、亦可作如入春林之想。

Flowers and Birds Motif Paintings of Ming and Qing Dynasties from the Suzhou Museum

Foreword

Starting with plum blossom,

Ending with chinaberry flower,

There are altogether twenty-four florescence winds

in Chinese lunar calendar.

Things grow and die as time goes by. During the life cycle, it is hard to take count of the exuberance of nature. Every year when winter comes to an end and spring comes to a start, wind blows east out of the blue. Varieties of flowers bloom one after another, and birds sing to each other. Their vigor and vitality arouse poets’ interest and fix philosophers’ attention on dynamics of nature.

As the old saying goes, the scholar would like to depict the graceful flowers and luxuriant leaves swaying in the sunshine, wind or rain, either in blooming or fading, against the window of the studio. When he sets the writing brush to paper, he feels it intriguing beyond words.

There were two major branches of flowers and birds motif paintings during the Five Dynasties period, one led by Huang Quan featuring extravagant colors and the other led by Xu Xi featuring the simplicity of nature. After the Five Dynasties and Northern Song dynasty, flowers and birds motif paintings became one of the mainstream painting schools, with various styles and schools taking shape within itself later. To summarize, the Song dynasty scholars were good at colored paintings, while the Yuan dynasty scholars ink paintings. The Ming dynasty scholars represented by the Wu School masters were innovative in strokes, while in the mid-Ming dynasty, scholars turned their attention to more impressionistic style. When it came to the Qing dynasty, different painting schools made their respective achievements that some established their name with a delicate style while some unconstrained style.

We have selected 34 pieces of flowers and birds motif paintings for this exhibition. The painters depicted flowers and birds in various postures and states, either in extremely details or in bold but elegant manner. The audiences would be able to appreciate the charm of flowers while feeling as pleasant as in the spring forest.