Insects and Flowers
In his later years Huang Binhong turned increasingly to flower painting. He painted this album when he was eighty-four, the year he moved from Beijing to Hangzhou to take a position at the Hangzhou Academy of Art. The album is executed with rough, abstract brushwork, with no regard for superficial dexterity or naturalistic representation. On the last leaf Huang observed:
The ancients often remarked that in painting it is better to be clumsy than clever. Some may even say that the clever can also be clumsy, because to understand that cleverness can lead to stupidity is to be close to the ways of Heaven.
(Wen Fong, trans., Between Two Cultures: Late-Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century Chinese Paintings from the Robert H. Ellsworth Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art [New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001], p. 178)
The ancients often remarked that in painting it is better to be clumsy than clever. Some may even say that the clever can also be clumsy, because to understand that cleverness can lead to stupidity is to be close to the ways of Heaven.
(Wen Fong, trans., Between Two Cultures: Late-Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century Chinese Paintings from the Robert H. Ellsworth Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art [New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001], p. 178)
Artwork Details
- 清/現代 黃賓虹 花卉草蟲冊
- Title: Insects and Flowers
- Artist: Huang Binhong (Chinese, 1865–1955)
- Date: dated 1948
- Culture: China
- Medium: Album of ten leaves; ink and color on gold-flecked paper
- Dimensions: 12 1/2 x 14 in. (31.8 x 35.6 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Gift of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, in memory of La Ferne Hatfield Ellsworth, 1986
- Object Number: 1986.267.204a–j
- Curatorial Department: Asian Art
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