Birds in a Lotus Pond [Photo provided to Chinaculture.org]

The painter of the work was Bada Shanren (Zhu Da), one of the four monks of a painting circle in the early Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and a descendant of a Ming royal family. After the downfall of the Ming, Zhu became a monk at the age of 23, and found no other way to express his sorrow except to paint.

Zhu’s painting style was curious, with an indifferent atmosphere. In Birds in a Lotus Pond, he focused on a narrow band of the natural world and created a daring composition of saturated ink lines and dots starkly set against a blank background.

The scroll opens with the daringly abstract form of a torn lotus leaf that is precariously suspended from its bent stalk, which extends leftward above a half-hidden blossom. On the shore beyond crouch two mynahs, their glances directed upward toward a final lotus leaf that looms above them. Balanced on the back of the second mynah is another tiny chick, its beak open in song or hunger.