Plum Blossoms

As noted by Xiao Ru in the eight-line poem inscribed on this painting, the plum blossoms here serve as a reminder to the artist of a politically volatile time around the turn of the twentieth century, when open rebellions, foreign intrusions, and civil wars threw China into turbulence and chaos. Xiao painted this flower of spring in the fall of 1965, on the Double Ninth Festival—the ninth day of the ninth month of the lunar year, a day on which the Chinese go to the mountains and drink chrysanthemum tea while thinking about loved ones. Feeling a desire to experience the cold, inspired by viewing the plum blossom, Xiao Ru climbed up snowy rocks and went to worship at a temple. Next to the plum tree by the temple, Xiao expresses his wish “to sweep the country of humiliation along with the flowers of the spring season.”

Unlike the usually orderly, organized layout of plum trees, the plums here stretch out wildly, with branches twisted or intermingled, an approach Xiao probably chose to better express a feeling of anxiety.