‘Chinese Flowers’ at Freer Gallery

Every blossom tells a story in “Chinese Flowers,” the latest in the Freer Gallery’s series of season-related exhibitions. Based on centuries of traditional symbolism, these paintings and drawings (all from the museum’s permanent holdings) can be read as parables of domestic life or spiritual aspiration. But they can also be appreciated simply for their craft and beauty.

One distinction is obvious. Some of the images are exact renderings, so precise that contemporary botanists can recognize the species. (These include the work of Wen Shu, a rare female artist in 17th-century China.) Others are looser, in the black-and-gray ink-painting style of Chinese “scholars” (a category that once included all educated Chinese, even those whose pursuits were far from academic). Within these two categories, however, are many variations.

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( Transfer from the United States Customs Service, Department of the Treasury / ) - Handscroll, \"Vegetables and Fruits,\" Gu Luo, Qing dynasty, China, 1828.

Most of the pieces date from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), but often are designed to appear older. In Chinese art of the period, there was no prestige in being new, so painters emulated (and even copied) earlier work. They also sometimes appropriated the blessing of history by adding verse from an earlier era. As in more sweeping Chinese classic landscapes, these pictures portray idealized and symbolic scenes, not reality. Even the most painstakingly rendered lotus, for example, would have been seen foremost as a symbol of purity and rebirth, not as a biological specimen.

Exhibition curator Stephen D. Allee, who has researched the artworks and translated their inscriptions and accompanying poems, says that many of the paintings are allegories of married life. A typical puzzle, or “rebus,” shows a couple — often depicted as a pair of mated birds — surrounded by emblems of long life and abundant (male) offspring. Lotus flowers, peach blossoms and spotted-neck doves all express longevity, while pairs of magpies embody happiness. (These meanings often rely on Chinese puns.)

Although apparently meant to flatter their recipients, the paintings may not all be so straightforward. Some of the poems, Allee notes, seem to offer ironic commentaries on the images. And one large piece, “Lotus and Ducks,” features two birds separated and perhaps glaring at each other. An inside joke, perhaps, or a candid representation of an uneasy union.

Many of the scholarly paintings are by Buddhist monks, notably Bada Shanren, a 17th-century prince who entered a monastery after a political reversal (and later returned to secular life). The exhibition includes his elegant paintings of a lotus, which is central to Buddhist iconography. Yet the artist puts something else in the center: nothing. This illustrates the belief that everything is emptiness, as taught by the Buddhist sect known to the Chinese as Chan (but better known in the West as Zen).

Religious austerity and domestic propriety aside, the most striking of these works are quite sensuous. That includes the most ornate piece, Gu Luo’s 1828 “Vegetables and Fruits,” which illustrates about 35 varieties of brightly hued edibles on gold-flecked paper. Xu Wei’s painting of a peony, from a 16th-century scroll titled “Twelve Flowers and Poems,” is no less delectable — even though it’s monochromatic. The brushwork is so fluid that the ink still seems liquid, frozen in mid-flow rather than allowed to dry. The peony symbolizes wealth and honor, but this particular image doesn’t need any back story. Its shimmering form is a poem in itself.