Bird and flower painting

Bird-and-flower painting
Early Autumn, 13th century, by Song loyalist painter Qian Xuan. The decaying lotus leaves and dragonflies hovering over stagnant water are likely a veiled criticism of Mongol rule.
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	花鳥畫
Simplified Chinese	花鸟画
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin huāniǎo-huà
Vietnamese name
Vietnamese alphabet	Hoa điểu hoạ
Chữ Hán
Korean name
Hangul	화조화
Hanja	花鳥畵
Transcriptions Revised Romanization hwajohwa McCune–Reischauer hwajohwa
Japanese name
Kanji	花鳥画
Transcriptions Romanization kachō-ga

Bird-and-flower painting is a kind of Chinese painting named after its subject matter. Normally, most bird-and-flower paintings belong to the scholar-artist style of Chinese painting.

According to Chinese tradition, bird-and-flower painting covers "flowers, birds, fish, and insects" (Traditional Chinese: 花鳥魚蟲, Simplified Chinese: 花鸟鱼虫 huā, niǎo, yú, chóng). It can thus deal with a wide range of natural topics, including flowers (plants), fish, insects, birds, pets (dogs, cats) etc.

The huaniao hua (花鳥畫) or "bird-and-flower painting" is proper of 10th century China. The most representative artists are Huang Quan 哳㥳 (ca. 900  – 965) and Xu Xi 徐熙 (937–975). They are the masters of two schools: the first school was led by Huang Quan (imperial painter). It is characterised by an “outline” method of brush work, with emphasis on bright colours filling a meticulously outline (gongbi). The other school was led by Xu Xi (never entered into officialdom) and typically used techniques associated with ink-and-wash painting.

The bird-and-flower motif started appearing in Japanese art around the Muromachi period of the 14th century, and developed its own distinct style. It also entered ukiyo-e woodblock printing, where it was known as kachō-e (花鳥絵). Especially the shin hanga movement produced a number of works with this motif starting in the Meiji era. Artists working with this were Ohara Koson (1877–1945) and Ito Sozan (1884–?), as well as Imao Keinen (1845–1924).

According to painting technique: