Flowers on a River: Bada Shanren’s Lotusland

UCLA professor of Art History Hui-shu Lee provides a deep and contextualized reading of the centerpiece of the exhibition—Bada Shanren’s Flowers on a River of 1697—a symphonic landscape of lotus and attached poetic ballad that unfurls in a scroll over 42 feet in length. Flowers on a River counts as one of the most important works by the secretive Bada, thoughtfully worked out over a period of months in his late years. Not only is the scroll’s primary subject of lotus and landscape among the most personal and enduring for Bada, the melodic verses written in his distinctive calligraphy prove equally significant. Cryptic and densely layered with allusions to past and present, Bada’s ballad reminiscences on a personal history defined by sorrow and alienation that simmers just under the painting’s visual appeal.