Expressive Characteristics of Five-Color Parakeet - Essay Example

Analysis of ‘Five-Color Parakeet’ It was during the Northern Sung Period when the styles and techniques of paintings in China reached its peak. The renowned Chinese artwork, Five-Colored Parakeet is a hanging scroll pained with Ink and colors on silk during the Late Northern Sung dynasty. The Sung Emperor, Hui-tsung was one among the avid art patrons, who is notable for his meticulous works on flowers and birds. This Five-Color Parakeet bears a poem with the signature of the emperor in an elegant calligraphy. In this paper, we shall have a detailed analysis of the artwork, Five-Color Parakeet, by discussing its expressive characteristics and different factors such as composition, color, texture, light and more. It also presents a contextual analysis of the work based on formal analysis and library research, positioning it in its socio-historical context. Since the beginning of early Tang, the Sung emperors were interested in having an official or unofficial Painting Academy. Hui-tsung, being an imperial painter himself, made active efforts in influencing the rise of the new techniques in paintings. His great stress on the Sung Painting Academy developed new style of paintings that dominated the aesthetic values of the entire Southern Sung Period. This style has its own hallmarks as the paintings were done with realistic nature by providing greater attention to the minute details coupled with meticulous execution. Furthermore, there was a prominent concern for the visual representation of the objects in a variety of textured surfaces. Among the important subgenres of the Sung Academy paintings, the ‘flowers and birds’ was a notable one, into which this particular painting of Five-Color Parakeet falls. This realistic artwork of Parakeet exemplifies the emperor and his court’s desire for elegance and precision in their artworks. The expressive characteristics of this painting shows an obvious enchant in the ability of the painter to deliver realistic representation of the objects and elements, particularly the bird and the flowers. The bird in the painting is painstakingly rendered with a newfangled style of that period which reproduces the bright and varied shades of the Parakeet in an awe-inspiring manner. The painting has a lucid and precise approach that provides a detailed attention to the visuals imprinted. The bird and flowers in the painting are overlaid on a small vignette of textured landscape. The bird is painted without outlines, except for the beaks, which means the entire bird is painted with color strokes and textures, including its soft fuzzy feathers. The expressive nature of the bird could be viewed from its healthy, bright-colored shades with an alert eye-view, made from the colors and shading, which makes the painting an ideal figure. Moreover, the shading in the painting holds greater emphasis on the figure as there is a blank background. The figure of the bird, the branches and flowers are very realistic with an off-center and asymmetrical composition. This high-quality painting holds distinguishing features of the bird which are closely observed and conveyed. “The Parakeet is perched on one of two multi-twig branches, each with buds and open blossoms, but no leaves. The twigs of the branches extend in many directions, giving a sense of depth to the picture.”1 According to the artist, the parrot in the painting was the palace’s exotic pet and is holds the attributes of nobility and dignity. Moreover, the richly detailed painting expresses the symbolic qualities of the bird, especially its freedom and naturalness, through the form and appearance of the bird. The artist makes his point straight-forward in describing the cherished palace pet using two major forms of artwork, visually and verbally. “He explicitly argues that the purpose of the painting was not to depict the appearance of things but to express the painter’s own feelings, making it much more like a poetry.”2 The painting is an outlined silhouette filled with vibrant colors and ink shades, which are then stippled with contrasting dark and light hues. The plumage of the parakeet is neatly contained within the outline while the wings and under-tail coverts had a uniform coloring with repeated strips in ink strokes and green washes. The branches and the apricots were outlined in black segmented strokes, and were filled in with brilliant colors. “He firmly delineated the contours and internal structure of buds and blossoms with a fine, even line, and he colored the flowers with opaque white and dots of green and red.”3 The perched branches are splayed in a pattern-style, rather than a realistic drawing. The rough woody branches, smooth exquisite flowers and fluffy bird are contrasted well, resulting is an isolated image. The contrasts between the different surfaces and textures of the painting have been articulated beautifully through composition, brushwork and colors. “His Five-Colored Parakeet, depicting the bird perched on a branch of plum blossom, is a masterpiece of composition as well as brush control.”4 Furthermore, the bird’s plumage is distinguished with different wash patterns that make the sizes, shapes and textures of the features to be contrasted well, even though they are not bounded by any outline. The hard parts of the parakeet, particularly its beak and legs are depicted with sharp strokes in black along with a stouter brush. “The color, pattern, and brushwork are diagnostic—both of the shape and markings of a five-colored parakeet and also of the characteristic qualities of feathers, beak, and claw.”5 The socio-historical context of the painting can be attributed to the Sung dynasty period in 1127-1279. During this period, there were annals of auspicious signs for the yingwu figure, which particularly depicts parrots and parakeets from the early times. It is possible that this painting was done for the practical demands of auspicious image making rather than for the purpose of an aesthetic courtly artifice. He had his ambitious paintings of auspicious signs done with Taoist connections, especially rare Taoist texts. “Huizong set court painters on an ambitious project, making visual record of all the auspicious phenomena of his reign.”6 Parakeets were received by the emperors as a tribute and were hailed as an auspicious sign for their prestige among the farthest reaches of the world. The yingwu were figured as a nominal subject in the Huizong’s world of auspicious visually as appeared in his memorial. A remarkable speaking five—colored yingwu, was offered to the Emperor Xuanzong of Tang as a tribute from the far-off south and was raised in his palace. “It was suggested to him that this might even be a fabulous bird of good omen called ‘Joy-of-the-Season’.”7 When Huizong constructed his painting of this Five-Colored Parakeet, he had the parakeet of Xuanzong in mind, as it was an auspicious image. The artists’ painting encompasses a poetry written in an elegant calligraphy of the emperor himself. The primary reason for the Sung Dynasty paintings to be accompanied with poetry was that the emperors used poetry to convey the meaning beyond the limits of the pictorial expression. The emperor recognized the power of description shared by both the arts through the convertibility of words and images. “Although these artists and poets frequently discounted the value of "form-likeness" in painting and saw poetry as a way to express meaning beyond what could be conveyed pictorially, they recognized the descriptive power shared by the two art.”8 The significance of the painting relies on its amateurish expression of ink and exquisite technical finesse in the art for identifying his subject matter and the subtle circumstances around it. His usage of silhouette, black background and diagnostic brushwork aims to deliver a consistent look and high-finishing with a precise rendering of colors. His expression of the subject is embodied with unnerving clarity in a visually compelling style images over a flat surface. The closely observed style of the painting makes the auspicious omen to look so realistic, which is its main function of the painting. Ideas about the true nature of the painting have changed over time, mentioning that Huizong actually did the bird but an Academy amateur painter could have done rest of the part. This was observed from the brush strokes and other minute details that distinguished the strokes between the bird and the apricot branches part. It was argued that the painting has no such sense of realism as the bird and branches are placed over an airless, timeless world on an abstract background. Also, all of the Huizong paintings were attributed as auspicious omens rather than artworks and this viewing the painting from this perspective would change the entire nature of the art. Painted by Huizong, the Five-Color Parakeet is renowned for its precise artwork and realistic painting. However, the expressive nature of the painting is subtle in its visual part, as it is accompanied with the poetic calligraphy that describes and interprets the scenario and subject verbally. The color, composition, brush strokes and textures along with the way it is used by the artist make it truly a masterpiece of the Sung dynasty. On detailed analysis of this artwork, from its socio-historical context, it was observed that Huizong has majorly focused on the auspicious image of the art, apart from its aesthetic and artistic values. Moreover, the dispute about the realistic nature of the parakeet and the trueness of its artist leaves the actual context of the painting to be lost among the contemporary studies. Bibliography Archives of Asian Art. New York: Asia Society, 2003. Bickford, Maggie. “Emperor Huizong and the Aesthetic of Agency.” Brown University, 2003, accessed on March 22 2014, http://faculty.oxy.edu/yuhas/articles/arth364/Huizong%20Qingming_files/BickfordAgency.pdf Chinnery, John D. The Civilization of Ancient China. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, 2012. Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. Emperor Huizong. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014. Eichman, Shawn. Taoism and the Arts of China. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2000. Harriet, Robert. E. “Chien Hsians Pear Blossoms: The Tradition of Flower Painting and Poetry from Sung to Yuan.” Metropolitan Museum Journal, 1987, accessed on March 22 2014, http://www.metmuseum.org/pubs/journals/1/pdf/1512834.pdf.bannered.pdf Murowchick, Robert E. China: Ancient Culture, Modern Land. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994. Schafer, Edward H. The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of Tʻang Exotics. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 1963. Read More