2-734-372 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Lotuses, Insects, and Birds, 1800s. Pairs of herons, kingfishers, and dragonflies punctuate a profusion of lotus in this composition that, given the orientation of the herons and the clustering of motifs in the left-hand side of the work, may have once been the left painting of a pair. Presently identified as being by the hand of a Korean artist, the painting has a stylistic affinity with Chinese Piling school paintings. Such paintings are characterized by their bird-and-flower or insect-and-flower subjects as well as by their lack of contour lines, a technique called the "boneless" method.