Pigeons et fleurs

Chen, Zhifo 陳之佛, né en 1896, décédé en 1962

Plum Blossom:

Signature: 雪翁

Painter’s seal: 1. 陳之佛印(白文) 2. 雪翁(朱文) 3. 心即是佛(朱文)

Translation: Xue Weng (the painter’s courtesy name).                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        The art of bird-and-flower painting in the gongbi style as practiced by Chen Zhifo and his contemporary Yu Fei’an 于非闇 is generally seen as a restoration of the precise, naturalistic style for which this genre became renowned under the Song. However, this revival of gongbi techniques in the work of Chen Zhifo was probably combined with borrowings from Japanese painting or Western watercolour art, to which the artist had been exposed during his training. The plum tree trunk is depicted in a technique known in China as jishui fa 積水法. This method, frequently used in Chen Zhifo’s work, may also been a Japanese influence. Known in Japan as tarashikomi, this technique is associated with the Rinpa school 琳派 . His interest in the decorative vocabularies of various civilisations, as described in his writings, indeed suggests that he borrowed this technique from Japan. Chen Zhifo’s art is singular in the manner in which elements of suggested nature cohabit with more realistic elements. The painting of pigeons is an example of the subtle harmony achieved between the jishuifa technique, used in the trunk, and the precise rendering of the birds, based on contour drawing.