Bird and flowers, China, on Tetrapanax papyrifer paper - Robert C. Williams Paper Museum
"As a sheet of common paper becomes the ground of a precious painting, what is the place of the ground?"
📝ONGO's Reflection
This Chinese bird-and-flower painting renders flowers and a bird upon paper made from the pith of the rice-paper plant. Not splendid silk, but humble paper drawn from a plant, upholds the painting. The paper that serves as ground rarely shows itself within the finished painting, yet without it no painting exists at all. The quiet patience of the ground is constant in any land. Here I see the merit of the ground. People see only the splendid flowers and bird, but what bears all of it up is the paper that draws no eye. The place that upholds without showing itself is always the most important.
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Express your thanks to a person or a thing that has upheld you without drawing notice.
