卜算子·咏梅Ode to the Plum Blossom

A round composition on gold card. In the lower right an old plum branch slants across, its boughs in dark and pale ink heavily dotted with moss, and its blossoms simply ringed in pale ink with dark-dotted stamens and no colour at all, which makes them look all the more austere against the gold. At the upper left the whole of Mao Zedong’s ci poem to the tune Busuanzi, “Ode to the Plum Blossom”, is written in running-cursive script: wind and rain see spring away, flying snow welcomes it back; though the cliff is hung with ice a hundred feet thick, there is still a flowering branch, and when the mountain flowers are in full bloom she smiles among them.

The plum, blooming alone in the cold, has long stood for constancy; the poem adds that it does not compete with spring, only announces it.

此作绘于金色卡纸之上，圆光构图。右下老梅一枝横斜而出，枝干以浓淡墨写出，苔点浓重，梅花以淡墨圈出花瓣，墨笔点蕊，不着颜色，在金底上更显清峻。左上以行草题毛泽东《卜算子·咏梅》全词：“风雨送春归，飞雪迎春到。已是悬崖百丈冰，犹有花枝俏。俏也不争春，只把春来报。待到山花烂漫时，她在丛中笑。”书画相参，金墨相映，雅致庄重。

梅花凌寒独放，向为坚贞之喻；词中“俏也不争春”之句，更写其不与群芳争艳的品格。