Gao Jianfu began studying with a prominent local artist, Ju Lian, in Keshan, Guangdong at the age of fourteen. He learned under his master's tutelage to paint flowers, plants, and insects in a subtle and highly naturalistic manner. Immediately before he executed this set of paintings Gao Jianfu began what was to become an important period of experimentation. These scrolls, then, with the delicate beauty of their vegetal subjects, sum up his early career. In particular, they retain the mogu, or boneless, techniques of Ju Lian, especially his methods of applying water and powdered pigment directly to the painting surface.