Marcie Woodard
9 x 15 artwork framed to 17 x 27
Gouache on pearl silk fabric
Brushed gold bamboo frame with white mat
Diptych with yin & yang panels (sold individually)
In the Qing dynasty, yellow was sovereign, reserved exclusively for the emperor, the most politically charged color in the Chinese decorative vocabulary. Blue, carried west on Qing export porcelain, became the color through which Europe first learned to see China. Together they defined a dynasty. Together they define this diptych. The peonies are rendered in a blue that has no precedent in nature. True blue peonies cannot occur, the genetic pigments required are simply absent from the flower. They were painted here anyway. The Chinoiserie tradition has always been an act of imagination. This diptych works entirely within that tradition, and then pushes past it.
