Author:

Category：Ink Painting

Size:Length:126 x Width:87.8 (cm)

Size description：192.5x87.8x6.3(含框)

Introduction：Ch'iu Min-hua, courtesy name Han-hsiang, was born in Ruifang Township, Taipei County. A painter and calligrapher, she has studied under Li Ch'i-mao and Tu Teng-yin, and serves as chair of the Taiwan New Century Cultural and Arts Association and as an instructor of Chinese painting at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. Her works have been included in the National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall's “Collected Works of Contemporary Chinese Calligraphy and Painting Masters” (1998) and the National Museum of History's “Collection of Works by One Hundred Calligraphers and Painters” (1999). In 2005 Ch’iu was invited by the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall to exhibit in the Sino-Japanese Cultural Exchange Spring Celebration Special Exhibition, and she has participated on multiple occasions in joint calligraphy and ink painting exhibitions in Taiwan, China, Japan, and South Korea.

The subject of "magpies on plum branches" carries auspicious symbolism in the Chinese tradition: the plum blossom represents the arrival of spring, while the magpie symbolizes good fortune and the legend of the Qixi Festival. Since the Republican era, Chinese painting creators have frequently used magpies on plum branches as a subject; for example, Qi Baishi painted many works on this theme, and Xu Beihong’s “Four Magpies” (1935) demonstrates the affection early Republican painters had for this subject. In terms of the format of this set of panels, the vertical screen form is highly developed in Chinese painting; it can generally be divided into the independent-scene and panoramic-scene types, the latter ordered sequentially, while the former requires conceptual coherence between panels. This work is a panoramic scene. Vertical screens generally come in even numbers, a four-panel screen consisting of four paintings in a group, with a minimum of two and a maximum of as many as sixteen, and four-panel screens being the most common.

The full four-panel set presents a springtime scene of plum blossoms in full bloom, each panel independent yet interconnected. The compositional approach across the four works is similar, pairing magpies with plum blossoms. The first panel from the right presents a scene of familial harmony: a magpie nest sits atop a plum branch growing toward the upper right, where two adult magpies have just returned with a small insect they have caught, while three chicks wait with open beaks to be fed, a scene both heartwarming and delightful. The profusion of red plum blossoms in full bloom further symbolizes the boundless promise and auspicious tidings of spring.

Accession Number:PT09601503

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