Pine and Crane 1932

Wang Zhen made this delicate, grayscale painting of a pine tree and crane with ink on paper. Can you imagine Wang Zhen standing before his blank page, feeling the brush in his hand, mixing ink and water? He probably had a vision in his mind’s eye, something he wanted to capture, but the painting itself would have emerged through trial, error, and intuition. I know that feeling, the shifting and emerging of an image that’s never quite fixed. The brushstrokes are so expressive here! Each one seems to communicate a feeling, an intention. I'm thinking of other painters of the time, what conversations they might have been having, what they were teaching each other. Artists are always in conversation, you know, inspiring each other across time. Ultimately, painting is about embodied expression. It embraces ambiguity, allowing for multiple readings. What do you see in the painting? What does it make you feel?