The artist here filled almost two-thirds of the painting with a scene of short and tall lotuses growing from the water’s surface. The blank area above represents the sky, where a swallow and a pair of butterflies fly about. The lower area devoted to the water reveals three pairs of water birds shuttling among the plants, the surface filled with duckweed of varying sizes to make for a very vivid and lively scene. The lotus leaves have been rendered with fine brushwork for the veins, the lines also expressing the twisting and turning of leaf edges. Combined with the use of light and dark shades of green to suggest the front and back of the leaves, the painting of the lotuses reveals great variety and richness, expressing a concept of space found in the interval between the Northern and Southern Song. Although this work does not depict withered lotuses, the falling of lotus petals onto the water’s surface already suggests early autumn.