Quick Answer: What Is Xu Wei’s Flowers and Bamboos?
Flowers and Bamboos (花竹, Huā Zhú), by Xu Wei (徐渭, Xú Wèi), is a monumental ink painting in the National Palace Museum, Taipei.
- Format and size: A paper hanging scroll, 337.6 × 103.5 cm.
- Subjects: Sixteen plants from different seasons share the field with rocks.
- Look first: Compare fine bamboo outlines with the broad, darker rock surfaces.
The work combines plants that need not coexist in one flowering season.
Tall stems and large leaves run up the right side, while a long written passage occupies the left. Between them, small flowers and branches gather around a much larger rock form.
Close viewing reveals several ways of building a plant form. Some petals remain lightly outlined; other leaves become compact patches of ink, and the rock spreads across broader, shaded surfaces.
Identify the Monumental Scroll and Its Sixteen Plants
The Taipei collection number is 故畫000910. The ink-on-paper image measures 337.6 × 103.5 cm, making its painted height more than three meters. [1]
The catalog’s complete plant list names plum blossom, orchid, chrysanthemum, bamboo, plantain, peony, narcissus, lotus, begonia, camellia, hibiscus, hollyhock, pomegranate, day lily, hydrangea and plantain lily. [1]
Use that list as a set of catalogued subjects, not a map of precisely labeled specimens. The picture brings several kinds of plant form into one expressive field.
The scroll-format guide explains the vertical support. Begin with the whole composition before enlarging a flower or leaf, so the relation between small details and the large rock remains visible.
The bird-and-flower painting guide provides the broader genre context. Despite the English title’s emphasis, this work has a more varied plant vocabulary than bamboo and a few blossoms alone.
Compare Outlined Bamboo with Broad Rock Washes
Double-outline drawing (双钩, Shuāng Gōu) describes forms established through their edges. Boneless painting (没骨, Mò Gǔ) lets ink washes establish forms without relying on a complete enclosing outline. Both approaches are relevant to this work. [2]
Look at the thin bamboo leaves. Their narrow shapes remain distinct where a fine edge separates them from the surrounding pale field.
Then compare the large rock below. Darker and lighter areas spread across a much broader shape, with openings and projecting edges interrupting its surface.
The painting-techniques guide develops the difference between contour and wash. Here, the contrast is especially clear when a thin leaf passes near a broad rock face.
The large plantain leaves offer a third comparison. Dark sections alternate with lighter divisions, creating a repeated rhythm that differs from both the fine bamboo and the rock’s irregular mass.
Follow the stems upward after looking at those surfaces. Their longer lines connect areas that might otherwise seem like isolated ink patterns.
Follow the Flowers through Changes of Ink
Choose one lightly drawn flower head and compare it with nearby dark leaves. The petals can remain open and delicate even when the surrounding foliage carries much more ink.
Another cluster uses many small repeated marks. From a distance these gather into a recognizable head; closer viewing reveals how separate strokes produce its texture.
Look for changes in the space around a branch as well. An isolated twig is easier to trace than a stem passing through several overlapping leaves.
The monochrome range makes these differences especially useful. Instead of depending on a separate bright color for every plant, the image varies density, line width, repetition and the amount of paper left visible.
Return to the whole scroll and follow those changes vertically. A narrow stem, large leaf, small blossom and rock opening can each redirect the eye at a different scale.
Compare a broad leaf with a finely divided flower head. Broad leaves ask for one kind of looking; finely divided petals and thin grasses ask for another.
Read the Written Dance beside the Plants
The inscription describes a friend’s request for sixteen kinds of flowers and introduces the written piece Dance of Sixteen Flowers (十六花姨舞, Shí Liù Huā Yí Wǔ). [1]
The title’s dance belongs to the literary framing. It does not require a hidden group of painted human dancers among the plants.
The calligraphy-and-painting guide develops their shared brush medium. Compare the vertical written columns with the nearby stems: one carries language, while the other gives direction and structure to plant forms.
The inscriptions-and-seals guide helps distinguish the artist’s writing from later collection marks around it.
After reading the occasion, look again at a flower and the rock beneath it. The work’s variety remains visible in the physical differences between fine lines, spreading ink and unpainted paper.
FAQs About Xu Wei’s Flowers and Bamboos
Where is the painting kept?
The monumental hanging scroll belongs to the National Palace Museum in Taipei, under collection number 故畫000910.
Does the picture show only flowers and bamboo?
No. The catalog identifies sixteen plant subjects, and rocks play a major part in the composition.
Do all sixteen plants belong to one season?
They come from different times of the year. The image combines them rather than documenting one moment in a seasonal garden.
Fuentes
[1] National Palace Museum. Xu Wei: Flowers and Bamboo, 故畫000910, including2011display commentary
[2] National Palace Museum. Flowers and Bamboo: selected-work commentary