Chinese Flower with Butterfly Cushion

Chinese Flower with Butterfly is a brush painting in traditional Chinese "gongbi" style. Watercolor and ink on rice paper. The Cotton Rose represents sometimes a beautiful girl. The most famous type of cotton rose is "Drunk cotton rose” as its colour is white in the morning, then pink at the noon, and red in the evening. It's very precious and symbolises precocity, chastity and beauty. In Chinese Cotton Rose sounds like the word wealth and glory, flower sounds like the word magnificent, so this combination symbolises "the inexhaustible great wealth and glory". One of China’s most important symbolic animals is the butterfly. In Chinese culture, the butterfly is seen as a symbol of rebirth after death and an indicator that your soulmate has arrived. The butterfly also represents long life and happiness. The Japanese word for butterfly can mean both longevity and joy depending on the context in which it’s used; butterflies were often depicted in traditional paintings alongside other symbols of longevity like peonies and other flowers. Chinese painting is one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. Gongbi, or “Meticulous Painting”, has been specially favoured for its realistic technique and bold colouring. GongBi is a careful realist technique in Chinese painting, the opposite of the interpretive and freely expressive XieYi style. The technique calls for brushstrokes to “be as detailed as detailed can be”, uses highly detailed brushstrokes that delimit details very precisely and without independant or expressive variation. In addition, it tries to strike a balance between artistic expression and vitality, is often highly coloured and usually depicts figural or narrative subjects. Gongbi requires drawing with fine lines first to represent the exaggerated likenesses of the objects, and then adds washes of ink and colour layer by layer so as to approach the perfection of exquisiteness and fine art.