牡丹（工筆）

花好月圓。

牡丹花，大家都喜歡，富貴的象徵嘛。

台灣不產牡丹，每年春季南投杉林溪牡丹（盆栽牡丹）開花時，人山人海，擠得水泄不通，人人爭睹「花王」的風采。

陶潛說他愛菊；周敦頤講他愛蓮；誰誰又愛竹；某某又愛梅，各有偏愛，但他們也都感嘆：愛牡丹的人委實太多了。

我曾仔細觀察牡丹，發現它的葉片長得很不一致，除了固定的那種形式之外也有根本不一樣的葉相，因此就很難說誰畫對或畫錯了。

昔日蘇軾看到王安石一首詩「明月當空叫，黃狗臥花心。」心想這寧非咄咄怪事？明月怎麼會叫？狗臥花心更是離譜了。於是隨手把它改成「明月當空照，黃狗臥花蔭」，這才稱心滿意。

多年以後，當蘇軾得知「明月」是一種鳥名；黃狗是一種蟲名，羞愧得簡直是無地自容了。

Peonies/fine brush painting

The flowers are beautiful and the moon is round.

Everyone likes peonies, which are a symbol of wealth and honor.

Peonies generally don’t grow in Taiwan. When the peonies of Shanlinxi, Nantou County (potted peonies) bloom every spring, thick crowds of people come to view the beauty of the “king of flowers.”

The ancient poet Tao Chien liked chrysanthemums, while Zhou Dunyi preferred lotuses. Many people liked bamboo, and a few liked plum blossoms. Everyone had their own individual preference, but all of them acknowledged that people who loved peonies were extremely numerous.

While carefully examining peonies, I discovered that their leaves are all different from each other. Apart from the way they are attached to the stem, they also have many different shapes. Because of this, it is hard to say whether someone has painted them correctly or wrongly.

After seeing the poet Wang Anshi’s verses: “The bright moon cries out in the sky, and the yellow dog lies in the flower’s heart,” the Song Dynasty writer Su Shi wondered what kind of strange things the poem was alluding to. How can the moon cry out? A dog lying in the heart of a flower is ridiculous. Su thereupon changed these verses to “The bright moon shines in the sky, and the yellow dog lies in the flowers’ shade,” so that they would make more sense to him.

Many years later, Su was mortified to find out that the “bright moon” is the name of a bird, and “yellow dog” is a kind of insect.＠

點閱【徐明義畫集】系列文章。

責任編輯：昌英