Phoenix on a Paulownia

This painting is executed with subtlety and precision and is an outstanding example of Yu Fei’an’s style of painting in the bird-and-flower genre. To fill in the large surfaces of the leaves of the paulownia, the artist used a remarkably delicate shading of the petals, where the color ranges from green to pink. The theme of the picture is didactically elucidated by the inscription, written in the legendary „slender gold script“. We learn from it that the bird is supposed to represent the phoenix, which, according to old legends would not settle on any other tree than the paulownia, the most noble of all trees. Here, the phoenix and the paulownia also symbolize a pair of lovers.