the camellias are held out by a branch as if to invite any passerby to see the delicate flowers and the beauty of it and the silence of it and the moment of it; but it is a bird that comes by that comes to sit on the branch to come to no purpose it seems but to sit as if to say to the branch to show to the camellias and the branch to point to the beauty of it the silence of it and the moment of it as the bird sits on the branch
companion art piece: Camellia and a Lonely Bird, Zhou Shuxi, 17 th century, Qing Dynasty, China, Nanjing Museum