Flowers of the Four Seasons  1599

The artist of this softly monochromatic handscroll evokes the passage of time with plants that bloom in sequence throughout the four seasons. The flowers of spring—tree peony, spring cymbidium, astor, peach, iris, and rose—flow into summer, beginning with the white magnolia (yulan) and crab apple ([i]haitang[/i]). Together, these last two flowers comprise a rebus or visual...