Qi Baishi
"Matsushou"
Axis Pen and paper, ink and pencil, 177cm×77.5cm, 1928
Title: Matsushou. PengChen Chun Qi Huang painting.
Seal: Bai Shi Weng (White Text) Seal of Qi Huang (White Text) Seal of Qi Huang (White Text) Seal of Qi Huang (White Text)
I remember planting a tree and hoeing a lotus, and I can't dream of returning home on this day.
Ander was old and had nothing to do, and the north window was lying high to listen to the sound of pine.
——Qi Baishi's "Title "Pine Window High Lying Figure""
Matsushou (partial)
Text | Wu Hongliang
The "Songshou" painted by Qi Baishi in the spring of Pengchen (1928) in the collection of the Beijing Academy of Painting is 177 centimeters high and 77.5 centimeters wide, which can be regarded as the best work of Qi Baishi's paintings, representing the highest level of Qi Baishi's art entering the mature period. It can be regarded as the best of Qi Baishi's mature painting.
Qi Baishi paints a stiff pine with a straight trunk in light ink, which is used as a background to highlight the interlacing of branches in the foreground. Pine needles are divided into three layers, each layer is dense and not chaotic, the roots are emerging, overlapping each other, without any sense of silt and transparent. Carefully looking at each pine needle is a steady and meticulous pen, especially the characteristics of the pine needle that are both soft and straight, soft and rigid are clearly and clearly transmitted to the viewer through Qi Baishi's profound pen and ink kung fu, and whenever you read it, you will praise the master's handwriting.
"Pine" in the Chinese cultural system represents a variety of meanings such as strong and indomitable, eternal youth, etc., this Tuqi Baishi turned these allegories into images, using seal books and dry pens to write the word "Songshou", which is vigorous and old, to show his heart. As for the expression of the connotation of pine, reading this picture reminds me of Jing Hao's "Notes on Brushwork", which is a treatise on Chinese landscape painting generated in the form of a counter-answer, which has a description of Song: "The life of Song is also in vain and not curved, such as dense as sparse, bandit green and green, from the micro to straight, the heart is not low." The momentum is both high, the branches are low, the upside down is not falling to the ground, and the layers seem to be stacked in the forest, such as the gentleman's virtue wind. There are paintings such as flying dragon cockroaches, wild branches and leaves, and non-pine qi rhymes also. It not only accurately summarizes the growth characteristics and morphology of pine, but also emphasizes the problems to be paid attention to when painting pine and the unique "gentleman's virtue" of pine. Re-reading this passage, the author believes that it is almost the annotation of Bai Shi's "Song Shou", of course, Qi Baishi may have also studied this passage of "Penmanship", but Jing Hao and Qi Baishi are separated by two masters who have been separated by a thousand years, and they really should sigh.
(This article is selected from "Beijing Academy of Painting Reading Classic Series - Qi Baishi", the author is a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and president of the Beijing Academy of Painting)
From: Beijing Academy of Fine Arts (Editor, | Gao Lei)