Four geese in a misty landscape form the subject of this elegant painting. One goose flies in from the upper right, a second perches in the reeds, and two other birds are on a sandbank. In Chinese art, the subject of geese evokes the season of autumn. The inscription on the left, which reveals Bian Shoumin’s inspiration for this work, is carefully written in Chinese calligraphy.
Five days past the time of White Dew in the year 1730 of the Yongzheng reign-era, while lodging in Yangzhou I heard Cao Qiupu play the song “Geese Descending on the Sandbank.” My inspiration rising, I did this on the basis of the poem:
Just now wild geese came into the sky,
as I waved my brush before the master of the qin;
Autumn sounds meld with autumn thoughts
as I stand beside I know not who.
The artist’s observations of nature here have been reduced to shapes and lines ink. He used subtly contrasting shades of grays to define the bodies of the plump geese. Soft horizontal bands of ink, suggest the grass growing on the sandbanks. Two geese and the reeds fill the lower part of the scroll, with one flying bird forming a diagonal at the right, balanced by the inscription on the left.
Bian Shoumin earned his living as a professional painter. He often visited the city of Yangzhou, where he sold his works, and he soon became associated with a group of artists called “The Eight Yangzhou Eccentrics,” who shared a love of calligraphy and an innovative painting style. Bian Shoumin dedicated himself to painting wild geese. He built a home along their migration route and produced paintings that capture the beauty of these birds in flight and nesting along the river banks.
The art of Chinese scroll painting dates back over 4,000 years. Throughout history, the Chinese have regarded calligraphy, and eventually painting as the highest forms of art. Many of the great Chinese painters, like Bian Shoumin, began as talented calligraphers. Scrolls, in either a long vertical format or horizontal format, are often intended to be unrolled slowly, revealing a story, as if the viewer was reading a book. This hanging scroll painting, mounted on silk and measuring over eight feet long, is meant to be viewed all at once.
