"Rabbit" is a beautiful word in China and has always been regarded as a mascot. "Rui Ying Tu" recorded: "Red Rabbit Da Rui, White Rabbit Zhong Rui." With the image of "rabbit", such works have been displayed in different ways from ancient times to the present.
The Dunhuang cave art represented by the Mogao Grottoes has reached a breathtaking peak since its rise, the most famous of which is the "Three Rabbits with Common Ears". In the Three Rabbit Lotus Well, three rabbits are arranged in a triangle, circling in a circle endlessly, chasing each other, and two neighboring rabbits each share an ear. The meaning of rabbits having many children, and the three rabbits represent people's good wishes for many children and long life.
Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes Cave 407 Three Rabbit Lotus Mogao Well (Sui)
Rabbits can often be seen in Chinese flower and bird paintings. One of the very representative paintings of flowers and birds of the Northern Song Dynasty, "Double Happiness Picture" is a silk coloring painting created by the Northern Song painter Cui Bai, which depicts the cold wind in late autumn, dead wood and grass, and fallen leaves withering, presenting a cold and desolate scene of autumn wind and slaughter. In the whole picture, between the two gray magpies, between the gray magpie and the hare, between the bird, the beast and the natural environment, the vivid nature is depicted, and the scene blends, fully showing the relationship between them.
Cui Bai "Double Happiness Picture" (Song)
Rabbit in the Snow is a Chinese painting by Chinese Qing dynasty painter Shen Quan. The painting is a vertical shaft, silk, light color, 230.5 cm long, 131.7 cm wide. This drawing shows two old plum plants, plum blossoms in bloom, dyed with white powder. The trunk of the tree is dyed with ink dots on the dark side, there are bamboo plums behind the tree, and a few small rabbits are below the picture, or looking at the plum blossoms from afar, or eating the grass, full of life. The sky is painted with light ink to set off the vast snow.
Shen Quan "Rabbit in the Snow" (Qing)
"Wutong Double Rabbit Diagram" is a masterpiece that depicts the traditional aesthetics of the Jade Rabbit Xiangrui. The whole body of the rabbit is white, the rabbit hair is drawn with fine brushwork, the texture of the fur is strong, the eyes are dotted with charred black, and the eyes are brightened with white, which appears crystal transparent, and receives the effect of finishing touches. And the dynamics of the double rabbit are novel and vivid, and the expression is vivid. While implicitly clarifying the theme, it also integrates the painter's poetic high emotion into the double rabbit. This brush is loose and beautiful, the shape is vivid and natural, the rules are dense, and the life is full of interest, which is very endearing.
Leng Yuan "Wutong Double Rabbit Diagram" (Qing)
Not only Chinese painters love rabbits, but rabbits also occupy an important place in the history of Western art. From the Renaissance to the present, spanning a hundred years, the image of the rabbit has appeared in different forms to the public, and many world-famous artists have used rabbits as materials in their works.
Albrecht Dürer, The Hare
Dürer's hare, the most famous rabbit in the history of art. He first laid a layer of base color with light watercolor, and then patiently drew rows of lines in opaque gum colors, using rich techniques to depict the texture, space and order of fur. He treated the length, density, and direction of these lines differently according to the part of the fur on the rabbit's body, and finally added bright white to individual places. The treatment of chiaroscuro and the shadows cast on the ground give the rabbit a solid three-dimensional effect. Finally, Dürer placed the monogram combination of his name and the year mark in the most prominent position on the picture, indicating that he believed it was a final work.
Albrecht Dürer, The Little Hare
In European art, rabbits have a place in mythology and folktales, some peoples worship rabbits as gods, and in some religious cultures rabbits symbolize evil, and rabbits are generally considered to be a sign of fertility. Since ancient times, there have been many cultures that believe that rabbits have divinity, Isis in Egyptian mythology, Artemis in Greek mythology are closely related to rabbits, and rabbits are also one of the many animals incarnated by Aphrodite, the god of love and beauty in Roman mythology. The famous painting "The Virgin and the Rabbit", now in the Louvre Museum in Paris, depicts the pure and beautiful image of the white rabbit beside the Virgin Mary.
Titian Vecellio, The Virgin and the Rabbit
At the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, there were many schools of painting and technical styles, and it was an era of new experiments by artists, especially neoclassicism, romanticism and academia. John Hoppner was a famous portraitist of his time, who used vibrant colors to express the already perfect English technique with extensive, rich and slightly traditional brushstrokes.
John Hopner, The Girl and the Rabbit
Eastman Johnson, an American artist who studied at the Düsseldorf Academy in the mid-19th century, had the precise drawing technique, fluid brushstrokes and interesting subject matter that the academy emphasized. Focusing on scenes from everyday life, he painted several portraits of his daughter and pet, in which the child sits sideways in a Windsor chair with a white-brown rabbit in his arms, and is it as eager as contemporary children to understand his little secrets.
Eastman Johnson, "Teaching the Rabbit's Child"
If anyone paints more rabbits, it has to be German painter Felix Schlesinger, whose "Feeding Rabbits" series can produce a book of paintings, with subtle and delicate color relationships and dark transitions to create touchable characters and environments.
Felix Schlesinger, "The Children Who Feed the Rabbits"
The most expensive rabbit ever sold: Jeff Koons' sculpture fetched a whopping $91.1 million. Koons is an American artist and collector who created an exhibit of the sculpture "Rabbit" in 1986, which is about 3 feet tall and made of stainless steel. The overall line of this rabbit is simple and cold, it has no facial features are very mysterious, and its face is smooth and shiny, like a mirror, which can directly reflect the appearance and expression of the viewer.
Sculpture exhibit from "Rabbit"
After seeing the rabbit images in so many artworks, I think everyone is full of hope for the new year, and as the Year of the Rabbit is coming, I wish everyone a "rabbit" to make rapid progress, all things victorious, cross the past, and go to a new journey together!