Simplicity is exuded in elegance, what is it like? Like, drinking a cup of fragrant tea, the aftertaste is endless. It is also like, looking at the beautiful scenery of the landscape, refreshing. There is a close connection between simplicity and elegance, and people like to say, "Simple but elegant"; they also like to say, "After cutting out the complexity, you can see the essence of things". This "Guanshan Map" also presents a sense of simplicity and elegance in its creation, which is unforgettable.
This painting is the work of the late Ming dynasty painter Wang Qi, who is very low-key, only knowing that he likes to paint landscape gardens and is close to the Wumen School in style. "GuanShan Tu" reflects the changes in mainstream aesthetics from the middle of the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Ming Dynasty. If you admire this painting, you will also find that the aesthetic taste of the last years of the Ming Dynasty is quite advanced, and there is even an aesthetic consciousness of modern art.
Wang Qi, "Guan Shan Tu"
When it comes to the four words "the last year of the Ming Dynasty", many people will think of the people's livelihood. Indeed, social contradictions have reached an irreconcilable point. Some historians believe that the end of the Ming Dynasty was the darkest and most decadent period in ancient history. From the point of view of artistic creation, oppression can stimulate the creativity of artists.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, there appeared the literati painting school represented by Dong Qichang, the Zhejiang school style represented by Lan Ying, the deformed and innovative style represented by Chen Hongshou, and the freehand genre of splashing ink created by Chen Chun and Xu Wei. The painter who lives in the dark is particularly sensitive to beautiful things, so he presents a sense of diversity and high quality in aesthetic taste. Through simple composition and decorative techniques, Wang Qi spied the art style of minimalism.
Wang Qi Guan Shan Map Partial
Modern people generally believe that minimalism originated from Western modernism and was proposed by architects. However, from Wang Qi's paintings, we can see several characteristics of minimalism, simplifying colors, simplifying composition, simplifying details, in short, everything in the painting is "subtracting".
By subtracting, Wang Qi achieved the effect of winning more with less, and winning from simplicity over complexity, and his paintings can also be described in a minimalist style. However, Wang Qi did not raise his artistic ideas to the theoretical level, he was more like a practitioner, trying various possibilities on the drawing paper.
Among the second generation of painters of the Wumen School, there is a famous artist named Lu Zhi, who likes to paint simple landscapes. Wang Qi was deeply influenced by Lu Zhi in his creations, and his style was very similar to his style, both in pen and color. The only difference was that Lu Zhi left at most half of the white space on the drawing paper, and Wang Qi dared to leave two-thirds or even more.
The simple painting style is explored in "Guanshan Tu", which to some extent also brings some adverse effects. Many people only see the simple composition and single brushwork in the painting, thus abandoning the exploration of technique. Over time, a number of "line paintings" with similar styles appeared in the Jiangnan area. This point, I am afraid, is not Wang Qi's original intention.
Leaving aside style and ism, these terms aside, artistic creation should be centered on technique. Wang Qi's ability to do subtraction is because he has mastered "doing addition". For those painters who are still learning, this simple style is best not to touch, so as not to go astray.