The Book of Plum

Professor Ju introduces the versatility of the plum painting and the meaning of rhythm. He then discusses how to make the composition by doing the huge trunk first, then the smaller branches. Many open spaces are kept for the groups of flowers. But, he also presents another technique by first arranging groups of flowers, then connecting them by adding branches and trunks. Finally, he shows how to wash the background of a painting. There are four color plates of plum paintings by the author at the end of the book.

A plum blossom painting starts with the trunks and boughs either in freestyle or in outline. Small branches and blossoms, added afterward, may also be either in freestyle or in outline. It is not necessary to have blossoms in the same style as the trunks or branches. Many artists put outline blossoms on one tree and freestyle blossoms on another in one painting. Trunks and branches can be painted in a combination of the two very different styles, and this combination has long been considered proof of the artist's excellence in skill and is never considered a mistake. Professor Ju introduces the versatility of the plum painting and the meaning of rhythm. He then discusses how to make the composition by doing the huge trunk first, then the smaller branches. Many open spaces are kept for the groups of flowers. But, he also presents another technique by first arranging groups of flowers, then connecting them by adding branches and trunks. Finally, he shows how to wash the background of a painting. There are four color plates of plum paintings by the author at the end of the book.

Professor I-Hsiung Ju was born in Jiangyin, Jiangsu, China, in 1923. He has been considered as one of the few Chinese artists able to blend two worlds of style, technique, and idiom to produce a unique form of painting that is both modern and traditionally Oriental. He graduated from the National University of Amoy in 1947 and received his B.A. degree in Chinese Art and Literature. Because of the war in China, he went to the Philippines to teach and at the same time to continue his studies. He received his B.F.A. in Painting in 1951 and M.A. in History in 1968 from the University of Santo Tomas in Manila. During the time he resided in the Philippines, he was a prize winner in graphic art, oil painting, and Nanga works in various countries, a writer and lecturer on art, he has held many one-man shows in Australia, Canada, China, England, Hong Kong, Japan, and the Philippines. As an Artist-in-Residence and Professor of Art at Washington and Lee University, he was selected Professor of the Year for 1971 by the Ring-tum Phi, the Washington and Lee University newspaper and was awarded the Best Art Educator of the Year for 1974 by the Chinese National Writers and Artists' Association in Taipei, Taiwan, the Republic of China. Prof. Ju retired from Washington and Lee University in 1989 and was honored by the board as Professor Emeritus. He passed away on March 17, 2012.