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Chinese watercolorist Guan Weixin recently held a solo
exhibition in North America and his works sold for between
US$30,000-US$50,000 each piece, as the artist from Northeast
China's Jilin Province claimed. Although money may not be an
important criterion in judging the success of art, it does reflect
the popularity of the art genre.
Watercolor art has not always enjoyed such a rosy market over
the past century since its introduction from the West and has
really only blossomed in the past 20 years. The story of watercolor
painting in China can be seen in a gigantic retrospective show
being held in Beijing.
It is the largest and most inclusive art show of watercolor
paintings on the Chinese mainland.
Gala of watercolors
The 306 selected works on display are on loan from private
collectors and Chinese art institutions including Tianjin Municipal
Museum, Guangzhou Art Museum and Jiangsu Art Museum.
"After three years' preparation, the watercolor paintings by the
most renowned and representative artists in China, including those
from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, have finally been put on show,"
said Huang Tieshan, a veteran watercolorist and director of Chinese
Watercolor Art Committee under the Chinese Artists Association.
Watercolor art was first introduced in China by Italian Jesuit
missionary Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766) in 1715. However,
education in watercolor art for Chinese didn't begin until 1867,
when the Tushanwan Painting Academy was founded by French Catholic
missionaries in Shanghai. Painting became a means to spread their
religious beliefs, according to Beijing-based art historian and
watercolorist Wang Chunli.
In master Chinese painter Xu Beihong's paper "New Chinese Art
Movement: History and Future," published in 1942, Xu called the
painting academy "the cradle of the earliest Western art on Chinese
soil." Most art historians agree.
Watercolor art started its embryonic stage between 1867-1911
when China was experiencing the most gruesome and painful
transition from a feudal society to a modern one.
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
watercolored landscape. That watercolor 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 watercolor may always
amuse the viewers for their strong poetic atmosphere and lingering
aftertaste and an intimate resemblance with traditional, colored
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 watercolor 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 Watercolors" 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, said Wang Chunli.
Watercolor entered its growing stage in China from 1911-49 and
the most famous artists of this period were Zhang Chongren
(1907-98), Pan Sitong (1904-81), and Situ Qiao (1902-58).
In the first few decades of the 20th century, watercolor gained
a huge popularity among Chinese people. In the 1920-30s, the
so-called yuefenpai (calendar) paintings, created by local artists
on the basis of both Western watercolor skills and Chinese gongbi
or fine-brush painting, became a favourite collectable among
millions of Chinese households.
The yuefenpai paintings usually featured then popular singers
and movie stars or legendary beauties from Chinese literary
classics.
Meanwhile, more and more Chinese youths were trained in the art
of watercolor with the establishment of a couple of art education
bodies, including Shanghai Art School (in 1912 by Liu Haisu),
Peking Art School (in 1918 by Zhen Jin), the National Art College
(in 1928 by Lin Fengmian), and the founding of watercolor societies
in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Guangzhou from 1912-36.
During the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression
(1937-45), many Chinese watercolor artists, such as Li Jianchen
(1900-2002) and Li Keran (1907-89) expressed their rage on Japanese
occupation of their native land and the atrocities committed by
invading Japanese troops.
Watercolor works at this time were created with Western
techniques but also a clear awareness of Chinese folk and ethnic
art, pointed out Tao Shihu, an art historian and watercolorist from
Shandong Province.
For instance, master painters Situ Qiao travelled to Xinjiang,
Ni Yide visited Miao and Zhuang ethnic groups in Guangxi and
Guizhou in the 1930s to seek inspirations, Tao said.
From 1949-78, watercolor gained rapid growth in New China since
the art genre was favoured by both professionals and amateurs
across the country, explained Huang Tieshan, adding that teaching
watercolor to Chinese primary school pupils has no doubt played an
important role in promoting the art.
However, during the catastrophic "cultural revolution"
(1966-76), watercolor was marginalized as it was considered not
suitable for expressing political ideologies, pointed out
Huang.
The representative artists of this era include Wang Weixing,
Guan Weixin, Chen Juju, Zhang Kerang, and Huang Tieshan.
Golden age
It is not until the early 1980s that emerged the golden age of
watercolor in China.
Particularly, "over the past two decades or so, watercolor has
made dramatic headway," pointed out Ma Shulin, vice-director of
National Art Museum of China, a key organizer of the
exhibition.
Since 1984, the art genre of watercolor has been put under an
independent category in the biennial Nationwide Fine Art Exhibition
and Competition.
It is estimated that at least 3,000 well-trained Chinese artists
from across the nation have engaged themselves in watercolor
painting.
And some Chinese artists have even won fans from overseas art
markets.
Nowadays, watercolor is taught in most primary schools and in at
least 20 universities and art academies in China. And numerous
watercolor societies have been set up in almost all the Chinese
provinces and autonomous regions, except Tibet and Qinghai,
according to Ma Shulin. "The number could be much bigger if taking
into account the amateurs," said Ma, admitting that oil painting,
most probably because of its stronger visual impact, remains the
most popular art genre in China.
"Generations of Chinese watercolorists have pushed forward the
boundaries of the art genre and injected the Chinese factor into
it," said veteran artist Chen Juju, 70, whose work "Oil Seed Rape
Flowers " is selected for the exhibition.
Over the past few yeas, she has noticed that younger artists
have tried their hands on different directions of watercolor art,
drawing from other art genre in terms of techniques and ideas while
seeking inspirations from traditional Chinese art and culture.
However, to attain a better position in Chinese art scene,
Chinese watercolorists should try even harder, critics say.
"Chinese watercolor works are by no means inferior to other art
genres in terms of technical sophistication and the scope of
subject matters," said Wu Jian, a young watercolorist who has come
from Sichuan Province to watch the art show. However, "most Chinese
watercolor works do not seem appealing to contemporary viewers due
to the artists' insensibility to social changes and their slow
reaction to new ideas and trends in contemporary art arena," said
Wu.
The exhibition runs until October 27.
(China Daily October 18, 2006)
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