Portrait of the Artist's Wife Holding an Orange

Liou Jin-tang's 1929 Fragrant Perfection, a portrait of his second wife, Guo Shuling, captures the serene calm inherent in her manner. Pregnant at the time, she holds an orange grown in the south of China, a symbol of "fragrant perfection," hence the painting's name. The artist used thick black lines to limn his subject and the objects around her, a clear-cut, motif-like depiction. Although the objects are highly patterned, the subject's corporeality is meticulously rendered. Starting from the two hands holding the orange, following the full outlines of the figure's body, the vitality of her ruddy flesh is fully apparent. Moreover, the thick clothing the figure wears emphasizes her `body's mass and physicality. Compositionally, the work is stable, set along perpendicular and horizontal lines, as still as if time had come to a stop. The darker colors are accompanied by understated hues, allowing the figure's deeply expressive gaze to tell the many stories implicit in the picture. The transformation from symbols and reality reveals the artist's keen observation of the world, and his affective and aesthetic vision.