Fragrant Flowers and Singing Birds

This piece adopted the four plants representative of the four seasons, namely, cherry, lotus, grape and camellia, which, together with the paired flying birds and Chinese mandarin ducks, constitute a life-like scene that integrates stillness and liveliness. The composition, with reference to the traditional Chinese perception of “round heaven and square earth”, looks both decorous and elegant. Regarding techniques, the artisan combined the “yin-cutting”, namely, outline-cutting featuring thin, flowing and connecting lines and the “yang-cutting”, namely, openwork-cutting known for no connections between lines and round cut corners.