Image of a flower with blue petals on a blue background. I can almost feel it, beneath my parka. Not quite, but almost: burgeoning, blossoming, a murmur of springtime. At the Solomon R. Guggenheim ...

Flowers and birds were favorite subjects of paintings in ancient China, offering a kind of special aesthetic interest. Flower-and-bird painting originated from the Tang Dynasty (618-907).

Since 2020, he’s been making paintings of birds amid colorful tumbles of flowers as part of an ongoing series, “Black and Part Black Birds in America,” in which he reimagines John James ...