regarding paintings hanging sequence

[erniewan]

Hi all,

 

I just re-framed paintings from my great grandfather and the paintings are more than 100 years old. Can anyone share their thoughts about the meaning of those paintings and what's the best sequence to hang those paintings ( starting from left to right or vice versa ). Appreciate all ideas, opinions and suggestions.

 

Regards. Ernie Wan

[Shelley]

A close up each picture of each one might be helpful, I see a cat, pair of ducks, and is it a cockerel in the last one? Cant make out the second one. Could be to do with seasons?

[erniewan]

Few aspects I'm looking at :

1. Animals 

2. Flowers - some painting have blurry flowers. 

3. Season 

 

still im not sure on how to arrange it.. tomorrow will post some upclose pictures of the painting

[889]

The inscriptions are slightly different, but all essentially say 項哲人写 “Drawn by Xiang Zheren."

 

A Google search brings up nothing on this name, which is odd if the artist has any reputation at all. Note, though, that a Chinese artist may use many different names on his paintings. not all of which may be common or recorded.

 

It's hard to judge by photos, but at first glance these don't look like antique works. As well, there's the use of the simplified character 写 in the inscription (but the traditional character 項).  Nonetheless, this isn't definitive, since some simplified characters were in use before they were formally adopted in the 1950s.

 

That the seals seem illegible is another red flag, though. Most artists take care when placing their seals.

 

As to hanging sequence, I'm going to guess that despite the birds, there are also the four seasons in there, and they determine the sequence. For example, are those chrysanthemums -- a late summer/autumn flower -- in the leftmost painting? And blossoms of some sort -- spring -- in the rightmost? Wintery gingko there in the next-to leftmost?

 

You can hang right-to-left spring-summer-autumn-winter. Or you can be more traditional and hang just one scroll during the appropriate season.

[erniewan]

Thanks for the note. These are painting drawn by my great grandfather and I guess it's about 100 years old.. I'm trying to figure out the hanging sequence. Maybe u can help up with suggestion. Let's say from right to left which painting gonna start first and there after... Thanks 

[889]

I’m not enough of a flower expert to identify what you've got with any certainty.

 

But I should have pointed out that one of the paintings is inscribed 仿古, that is, as a copy of an old painting.

 

So you might find it useful to look at other paintings of this sort and see how they're arranged. Maybe you'll find the original for your set.

 

Search Google Images with the following and you'll get scores of these paintings:

 

四季  国画  四屏

 

You can narrow the search a bit by adding 清代 Qing Dynasty.

[Shelley]

Personally I would hang them from Spring through to winter from left to right.

 

Are you likely to have anyone visit and see these paintings that might know if they were incorrectly hung? If so you could ask them or take their advice if given, till then I would hang them to please myself.

[erniewan]

Thanks for the idea. Very much appreciated