Booming Flowers

Pang Xunqin, a pioneer of Chinese artist to study in France, was one of the founders of the Storm Society (Juelanshe)—the first modern art group in China—and a trailblazer in modern arts and crafts education. Throughout his life, he pursued the beauty of nature, using flowers as a recurring subject to explore the fusion of Chinese and Western art. In the 1970s, he resumed painting and focused on small still-life compositions of flowers. Booming Flowers is one of the masterpieces of this late period, which balances the thick, colourful brushstrokes of the Post-Impressionist style with the lyrical, decorative nature of historic Chinese painting. The pink blossoms of the flowers — as the title suggests, all in the unified same state of bloom—pour out of their vase, placed off-kilter from the canvas’s central axis, a delicate dance of form, composition, and colour. Pang, who died a few years after this painting was completed, often said, “If my works can make you feel a little bit of beauty, it will be my greatest happiness.”