Flights of Fragrance at a Fingertip ｜ Exhibition Design

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Exhibition Design

Flights of Fragrance at a Fingertip :
The World of Birds and Flowers in Painting, Tapestry, and Embroidery

The beautiful colors of birds and flowers, being full of rhythm and vitality, always evoke images of beauty, which is why artists have repeatedly turned to these subjects over the ages. As early as the Shang and Zhou dynasties, more than two millennia ago, birds and flowers were already important decorative motifs in Chinese art. And by the Tang dynasty, when the techniques of painting began to mature, “birds and flowers” had become an independent category in art. Chinese painting then reached a level of maturity as its methods further developed and diversified in the Five Dynasties period during the tenth century. In the following Song dynasty, “bird-and-flower painting” experienced a heyday, when the idea of “sketching from life” to render forms as they appear in nature became the trend. Then, when literati art took hold in the fourteenth century during the Yuan dynasty, bird-and-flower painting came under its influence, adding the untrammeled aura of monochrome ink to this category. Artists in the subsequent Ming and Qing dynasties followed traditions of the past as bird-and-flower painting in the “sketching ideas” manner blossomed. In all, painters depicting birds and flowers through the ages have constantly engaged in a dialogue with nature. With consummate techniques and spiritual sustenance, they have created a rich and spectacular tapestry of art.