About the book:

One of the three main types of Chinese painting, bird-and-flower painting has continued for over a thousand years since the Chinese Tang dynasty. It varies in style and appearance from era to era. The Song dynas-ty saw a peak of bird-and-flower painting, during which time the schoolstyles flourished and, on the other hand, the freehand style gained ground thanks to scholar-artists. During the Song dynasty, aesthetic apprecia-tion of bird-and-flower painting began changing under the influence of poetry and Neo-Confucianism at the time. Bird-and-flower painting had tended to be rendered superfluously magnificent until the middle and later stages of the Northern Song dynasty, when brushwork diversified:The school styles of bird-and-flower painting tended to highlight life of nature as it was, while the freehand style focused more on the beauty of human character, a shift in aesthetic conceptions and ideals.

Commonly seen subjects of bird-and-flower paintings from the Song dynasty are flowers and birds: Flowers are largely those of peony, lotus, Chinese herbaceous peony, and flowering peach, rendered elegant and resplendent; birds are generally represented animated and lively in all manners of posture.Golden Pheasant and Cotton Rose Flowers,Ripen Fruit and Birds, Loquat and Mountain Bird, Lotus Flower, White Roses, and Tiers upon Tiers of Ice-white Silk,are all classic works of bird-and-flower painting from this period.

This album contains 19 bird-and-flower paintings from the Song dynasty, which vary in size and style and whose inclusion is intended to offer a panoramic view of Chinese bird-and-flower painting of the Song dynasty.