Filed under: Writings | Tags: chinese ink painting, sam, singapore art museum, standing horse, xu bei hong
On the 10th of August, I visited the Singapore Art Museum to catch a glimpse of Xu Bei Hong’s legendary paintings. Yes, I must say that he does live up to his name as the “Modern Chinese Master of Fine Arts”. Xu Beihong is well known for his Chinese ink paintings of horses and birds. He was also one of the first Chinese artists who has fused the painting techiniques of the West and the East together in a sucessful manner, bringing much more life to Chinese paintings due to e brightened up palete that he uses. He was one of the first to create monumental oil paintings with epic Chinese themes, paintings that are depicted from Chinese poems etc.
Let’s take a look at one of his famous horse-themed chinese ink paintings
standing horse
The subject matter of this Chinese ink Painting is a black horse. Its fur and mane are both black in colour. It is oriented in a position such that its body is facing the left of the painting while its head is turned towards the right. It seems to be looking downwards at something afar. Its tail and mane seems to be blown by a relatively strong gust of wind coming from the left of the painting. The horse stands upright in a stern manner, and seems that it is looking at something intensely. It looks like it is on its guard, being protective of the environment around it. Its legs are planted firmy onto the ground, standing strong and firm. There are a few chinese characters written on the top hand left corner, ending with a chinese stamp of Xu BeiHong;s name.
Xu’s use of varying brushsrokes attributes to the overall realistic depiction and movement of the horse. Thicker and darker brushstrokes are applied to certain areas to indicate shadow, Light and wispy brushstokes are applied to show the flowing movement of the horse’s fine hair in the wind, thin and fast brushstrokes are used to paint the sparse amount of long grasses on the ground, indicating wind movement. The effective and clear use of different tones of black to model the horse’s body gives viewers more sense of reality. Xu also used other colours like brown and specks of green for the grasses to give the painting a more enhanced look, rather than using black chinese ink throughout.
Overall, I feel that this painting is full of rigour and energy, yet bold and strong. The horse’s ‘on-the-guard’ pose also gives me a sense of security. This painting reminds viewers that one has to be strong and alert at all times, and hold up one’s head even in times of danger and fear.
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You’ve been to the art museum too? You know, we have totally different tastes in art. Xu BeiHong’s chinese ink Paintings is kind of dull and boring to me. I like his oil paintings better, even though the subject matter are always portraits of the rich people.
But your analysis of his work is really detailed and in-depth! It helped me gain a better understanding of his chinese paintings!
Comment by GUOSHU August 24, 2008 @ 3:38 pm