Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper
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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/rene-burri-22358" aria-label="More by René Burri" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">René Burri</a>
Former Summer Palace Dead Lotus Flowers on Kunming Lake Bejing China 1964
Presented by Pierre Brahm 2015
architecture
Beijing, Summer Palace
bridge
bridges and viaducts
China
Chinese
cities, towns, villages (non-UK)
countries and continents
emotions, concepts and ideas
formal qualities
garden
garden structures
history
lake
lotus
mist
pagoda
period: Qing Dynasty
periods and styles
photographic
places
plants and flowers
politics and society
water: inland
weather
<p><span>Former Summer Palace. Dead Lotus Flowers on Kunming Lake. Bejing, China 1964 </span>1964, printed 2014, is a black and white photograph by the Swiss photographer René Burri. The lower two thirds of the image contain dead lotus flowers protruding above the surface of a lake. While some still have their flowers, the dead stems of others bending down at sharp angles create densely-packed and abstract rectilinear shapes with their own reflections in the water. Some resemble letters, diagrams or simple lines. Two poles stand above the water level in the medium distance. In the background, lines of trees, the roof of a pagoda-like structure and a bridge are visible, all reflected in the water and hazy with distance. Without the structures in the background to provide context, the dead flowers and their reflected shapes would appear almost entirely abstract.</p>
paper print photograph gelatin silver
Former Summer Palace. Dead Lotus Flowers on Kunming Lake. Bejing, China 1964
image: 351 × 523 mm
Presented by Pierre Brahm 2015
<div class="text">
<p>
<i>Former Summer Palace. Dead Lotus Flowers on Kunming Lake. Bejing, China 1964 </i>1964, printed 2014, is a black and white photograph by the Swiss photographer René Burri. The lower two thirds of the image contain dead lotus flowers protruding above the surface of a lake. While some still have their flowers, the dead stems of others bending down at sharp angles create densely-packed and abstract rectilinear shapes with their own reflections in the water. Some resemble letters, diagrams or simple lines. Two poles stand above the water level in the medium distance. In the background, lines of trees, the roof of a pagoda-like structure and a bridge are visible, all reflected in the water and hazy with distance. Without the structures in the background to provide context, the dead flowers and their reflected shapes would appear almost entirely abstract. </p>
<p>This image is part of a portfolio of twenty-seven prints (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/burri-inauguration-of-the-chapel-of-notre-dame-du-haut-france-1955-p14301" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P14301</span></a>–<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/burri-poster-of-che-guevara-1993-p14327" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P14327</span></a>), selected and compiled by Burri as a cohesive group shortly before his death in 2014. The selection spans his sixty-year career and includes a number of his best known black and white works, as well as a group of lesser-known colour works. The portfolio was printed by Burri in 2014 and this copy is number three in an edition of five plus one artist’s proof. It contains fourteen black and white gelatin silver prints and thirteen colour C-prints, highlighting Burri’s diverse use of light and shadow alongside his experimental use of colour. Although predominantly known for shooting in black and white, Burri often travelled with two cameras, switching between them to capture images in both colour and greyscale. This was a progressive approach at the time, when colour photography was generally only used in advertising or for commercial practices. Burri revisited his archive of colour images later in his career and published the monograph <i>René Burri: Impossible Reminiscences</i> in 2013 as a decisive examination of this work.</p>
<p>Burri is most famous for his work as a member of the photojournalism agency Magnum Photos and the portfolio includes images produced in this context from projects in Brazil, Egypt, Lebanon, East Germany, China and South Korea, as well as an iconic image of Cuban revolutionary leader Che Guevara taken in Havana in 1963. The young Burri was introduced to Magnum by fellow Swiss photographer Werner Bischof and began working with the agency first as an associate in 1955, before becoming a full member in 1959. His extensive career encompassed a wide variety of photographic practices, including documentary, reportage, street photography and the photo-essay, as well as portraiture, architecture and landscape. He often worked on press assignments and personal projects simultaneously, building a varied portfolio of work in both black and white and colour. Burri’s use of both bird’s eye and worm’s eye views and his attention to the effects of light and shadow created by architectural forms are reminiscent of techniques used by modernist photographers in the early twentieth century.</p>
<p>
<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Hans-Michael Koetzle, <i>René Burri Photographs</i>, London 2003.<br/>Hans-Michael Koetzle, <i>René Burri: Impossible Reminiscences</i>, London 2013.</p>
<p>Shoair Mavlian<br/>January 2015<br/>Arthur Goodwin<br/>October 2018</p>
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Summary
2019-01-18T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
architecture Beijing, Summer Palace bridge bridges and viaducts China Chinese cities, towns, villages (non-UK) countries and continents emotions, concepts and ideas formal qualities garden garden structures history lake lotus mist pagoda period: Qing Dynasty periods and styles photographic places plants and flowers politics and society water: inland weather