Impatiens and butterfly 1947

Qi Baishi made this work, "Impatiens and Butterfly," with ink and color on paper. The way the colors wash into each other makes it feel like a fleeting moment. I love how the butterfly is just a burst of black ink – so simple, but it totally captures the feeling of something flitting by. There's a realness to the textures here. You can almost feel the paper, the way the ink soaks in. The red dots of the impatiens pop against the muted greens and browns, like tiny bursts of energy. Look at the branches: they're not perfect, they wobble and curve, and that’s what makes them feel alive. It's all about the gesture, the movement of the hand. I think of Cy Twombly sometimes when I see this kind of work, that same sense of immediacy and the beauty of the imperfect mark. It reminds me that art is just a conversation, an ongoing exchange of ideas and feelings, never really finished, always open to interpretation.