Magnolia Blossom Notebook

Magnolia Blossom is a brush painting in traditional Chinese "gongbi" style. Chinese watercolor and ink on rice paper. The flower painting is peculiar to China. All kinds of flowers and plants were given various symbolic meanings. Flowers can be compared to almost all thoughts and feelings of human being. They can symbolise feminine beauty, virtues, political authority, omens, and lucky niceness. And once established, this tradition became popular in every dynasty. Therefore their symbolic meanings grow increasingly rich and specific. In flower painting's long history of development, some subject was given the fixed auspicious Fengshui meaning. The magnolia is known as mulan 木兰 in Chinese. A white magnolia is known as a "jade orchid" yulan 玉兰 due to its beautiful white jade colour and the orchid-like aroma. It is one of the flowers traditionally used to represent feminine beauty. The magnolia is also sometimes depicted with orchid to give the meaning "pure and noble." GongBi is a careful realist technique in Chinese painting, the opposite of the interpretive and freely expressive XieYi style.