Page 113 - Christie's, Important Chinese Works of Art December 2, 2015 HK

good wishes to the recipient. The floral sprays are loose
and depicting flowers of the four seasons. The paintings are
finely executed in refined brushwork as well as expressionist
brushwork. The flower-heads are painted with fine strokes
but the stems and leaves are expressionist, and in ‘boneless’
style using shadings. As such the colours are rendered refined
and elegant. These paintings are undoubtedly by master
painters working in the imperial workshops. Unfortunately,
as these paintings are anonymous it is difficult to ascertain
the name of the artists but their styles are often found among
court paintings collected in the Palace. With exception of
a restricted few artists who were permitted to sign their
work, such as Jiao Bingzhen, Leng Mei, Lang Shining, Ding
Guanpeng, Jing Tingbiao, a large number of court paintings
remain anonymous.

The kesi panels are important decorations. The technique
involves intact warps and cut woofs which renders visual
contours on an otherwise flat surface. During the Qing
dynasty, Suzhou was the primary, and the largest, source in the
supply of materials to the imperial palaces.

The kesi design uses blue, moon-white, dark green, green,
light green, crimson, pink, light pink, orange-yellow colours
against a white ground.The techniques applied are known as
pinke, jieke, changduanqiang, baoxinqing, mushuqian, quanke, and
gouke to create a different variety of flowers including mallow,
pomegranate, peony, peach blossom, magnolia, prunus,
begonia, lingzhi, bamboo, chrysanthemum, osmanthus, day
lilies and Taihu rocks. These form the rebus, Liansheng Guizhi,
‘Begetting sons every year’, and Yutang Fugui, ‘A jade vat of
good fortunes’. It is of particular note that the use of gouge,
permits the darker colours to demarcate lines of the rocks
and trees; changduanqiang technique is used for the peaches,
rocks and flowers to produce two different shades of light
and dark colours. Baoxinqiang technique is used for the rocks,
tree trunks; and this technique incorporates Changduanqiang
to create the effect of shading effects of light to dark areas
or dark emerging into light areas. The kesi technique and
the composition of the floral sprays are exceedingly well
combined.