The Art World of Chinese Painting Master Qi Baishi

                              Qi Baishi <Chinese Zodiac: Ink Mice>

Qi Baishi, the painter, is a household name in contemporary China.  He not only had delicate painting skills, colorful life, his classic beard, is also for people to relish.  The “Art World of Qi Baishi” sponsored by the Guangzhou Art Museum and the Beijing Art Museum will be on display from January 1, 2020 to March 22, 2020 at the Chinese Painting Museum on the first floor of the Guangzhou Art Museum.

Many childhood memory of the 70’s n 80’s, those ink animal images of the 1960 Shanghai art film studios animated film “Little Tadpole Looking for Mom” were inspired by Qi Baishi various animals painting, like those chicks, dragonflies, shrimps, crabs, frogs, and even lotus leaves appeared in the film, all those prototypes can be found in Qi Baishi’s works. This animation film creatively used China’s unique ink painting techniques to animate so that “ink painting” moved, creating sensation among the international animation industry then.

The first part of this exhibition, “The Gate of the Great Master”, exhibits more representative Qi Baishi works, including calligraphy, landscape, characters, aquariums, fruits and vegetables, birds, flowers, insects, carvings, etc. .  Qi Baishi’s classic representative works are selected for the audiences in each category.  The second part, “Spend a Good and Prosperous Year” shows Qi Baishi’s paintings with auspicious and festive meanings, including flowers, birds, vegetables and fruits, people, and calligraphy writing auspicious words.

The exhibition will also feature a set of Qi Baishi’s paintings of the “Twelve Chinese Zodiac Signs”, which may be the only complete set left which are especially valuable. There are also a number of public events during the exhibition, including a lecture entitled “Qi Baishi’s 1919” by Wu Hongliang, VP of the Beijing Academy of Art and Curator of the Beijing Academy of Art Museum.  Zhang Tao, an associate professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts will give speeches on “From the Late Qing Dynasty to May 4^th event – Qi Baishi and His Time”.

Source: Guangzhou Daily