Sparrow and Rice by Wang Zhen

Ink and color on paper
41x108cm
Liaoning Provincial Museum

Rice becomes mature in the regions south of the Yangtze River. The home-bred sparrows pausing on the bamboo fence are as delighted as are the farmers - it is time for harvest and there won't be worries about a shortage of food for a whole year. The painter didn't care about being true to the shape of rice. Instead, he painted them as swaying in the wind like weeds. He used freestyle brushes - a technique he was skilled in and often used to paint flowers 1 to paint the rice. But he added realistic rice ears to assure the viewer of what he was really painting This is the strength of the scholar painter. Before Wang Zhen finished this painting in 1929, people had never seen mature rice so vividly portrayed. The inscriptions in a block create many contrasts in the painting - big and small, sparse and tight, thin and thick, still and moving; it is an indispensable part of the work.