Lisa Ng Art: A Painter's Peony

Peony Panda acrylic on canvas 6 x 6 x 1.5 inches, 2013 In private collection.

Peonies are my favourite flower, every year I get peonies for my Birthday as they remind me of my grandma who always knew when my Birthday was coming, "when the Peonies are in bloom!" I painted this peony panda a few years ago, pandas are my favourite as they also remind me of my grandma. A deep dive into history's best peony painters inspired this post, turns out peonies have long carried much cultural wahoo!

Peony

A fragrant flowering plant native to Asia, Europe and Western North America with about 33 known species. Purple, pink, red, white and yellow, they open in a short window of 7 to 10 days in late spring/early summer. While it takes several years to re-establish itself when moved, it blooms annually for decades once settled. Two cities in China, Luoyang and He Ze host annual peony exhibitions and state-funded peony research facilities. Today The Netherlands is the largest peony-for-cut producing country. Confucius is known to have eat nothing without its flavourful sauce and for centuries all over it has been cultivated for its medicinal properties. A remedy against stomach pains, epilepsy, jaundice, gallstones, seizures, teething pains and snake bites, the Romans treated over 20 diseases with it including warding off evil spirits, demons, witches, storms, the evil eye and bad dreams. It protected crops and was also given high titles from the "King of Flowers" to the "Prime Minister of Flowers," its petals have been used in tea, added to salads, punches and lemonades for centuries. Culturally celebrated they have been used to tell the stories of human triumph and tragedy for generations. In one Greek mythology the God of medicine was transformed into a peony flower to be saved from another's jealousy, in another they sprouted where a God's tears were shed after the loss of a loved one, these flowers have been used to represent immortality and perfection. In Chinese culture they decorated the imperial palaces to express the wealth and prosperity 2.5 century long dynasties like those commissioned by the Qianlong Emperor Qing dynasty and painted by the Italian Jesuit painter and architect Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766). The Europeans referred to them as the "rose without thorns." In Victorian times they symbolized a peaceful life, a happy marriage and good luck. In the female they have known to represent from beauty and fertility to bashfulness, shame and shyness with a story of mischievous and or timid nymphs known to hide their nakedness in-between the petals. In the male they were popularized in full body tattoos to represent ferocity and power inspired by the peony decorated warriors of the woodblock prints and paintings of Japanese artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861) Other famous peony painters past have been the Swiss physician, naturalist, bibliographer and philologist, Conrad Gessner (1516-1565), the German engraver, printmaker and painter, Martin Schongauer who filled the Dominican Church in Colmar with stories of colour and tenderness and the French Modernist and Impressionists, Claude Monet (1832-1883) and his contemporary Auguste Renoir (1841-1919).

Martin Schongauer (1450-1491)

Yup Shouping, Qing Dynasty 1644-1911

Gold engraved lacquerware food tray, Song dynasty 1960-1279

The two long-tailed birds represent longevity and the peony represents prosperity.

Portrait of the Fragrant Concubine during the Qing by Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766)

A mythical figure in Chinese legend based on an actual concubine from Western China who entered the imperial harem. They say she had a natural fragrant scent, maybe of peonies! and bathed in camel's book daily on her journey to the imperial court to preserve her natural fragrant scent. Homesick, the emperor did everything he could to win her heart, giving her a luxurious room and a garden and building her a a bazaar, a mosque and a miniature oasis based on her hometown. Until finally, he won her over with a jujube tree bearing golden fruit from her hometown.