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Chinese Watercolour Art's Journey Over the Past Century
Representative artists of this period include Xu Yongqing
(1880-1953), Li Tiefu (1869-1952), Li Shutong (1880-1942) and Wang Yuezhi
(1894-1937). During his first year as an art major in Japan in 1905, Li Shutong,
a celebrated, versatile artist better known as Buddhist master Hong Yi to most
Chinese, sent back a postcard to his family in Tianjin . On the back of that postcard, Li painted a small,
poetic watercoloured landscape. That watercolour painting is widely believed to
be the earliest, mature piece of that art genre, created by a modern Chinese
artist and available to today's viewers.
As most of these artists were well-versed both in traditional Chinese art and
Western art, their works of watercolour may always amuse the viewers for their
strong poetic atmosphere and lingering aftertaste and an intimate resemblance
with traditional, coloured ink paintings in terms of visual effects and
composition. This tendency is best illustrated by Li Tiefu's signature work
"Chrysanthemums in a Vase," which has for decades been widely recognized as one
of the best Chinese watercolour paintings ever created.
The artwork is used for the invitation card, the posters for this exhibition
and the cover picture for the newly published catalogue entitled "A Hundred
Years of Chinese Watercolours" by the People's Fine Arts Publishing House.
The ensuing May 4th Movements in 1919 helped bring about drastic rethinking
of traditional Chinese culture and Western ideas and techniques. Western art
genres were introduced to Chinese society on a massive scale.
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