Modern Chinese Figure Painting

Since the Song and Yuan dynasties, the painting style of the literati has constituted the mainstream of Chinese painting; and most pictures depict things of the natural world, such as landscape, flowers and birds. Figure painting developed rather slowly. As modern realist art began to influence China at the beginning of this century, the number of figure paintings increased. The introduction of Western realistic painting skills after the founding of New China, and the start of sketching classes with live models in Chinese art schools further stimulated the development of figure painting in China. Many new figure painting artists, such as Wang Menglie, Liu Wenxi, Fang Zengxian, Yang Zhiguang, Li Zhenjian and Zhou Sicong, have made their names known in the society. They comprise the new Chinese figure painting generation after Xu Beihong and Jiang Zhaohe.

Huang Zhou (1925-1997) was an excellent Chinese figure painter with a creative spirit. He received no formal artistic education, but mainly studied on his own, drawing countless sketches to improve his painting skills and finally forming his own artistic style. Some modern Chinese painters inherited traditional Chinese painting styles by paying too much attention to brush stroke techniques and ignoring accurate body shape, while some other painters learned doggedly from Western sketches and put aside traditional Chinese painting methods. Huang Zhou learned from both the Chinese painting traditions and the accurate portrayals in Western pictures. His paintings aimed at revealing the true objects and feelings in life. After long years of practicing sketches, he increased his understanding of live subjects, and could quickly grasp the most representative or typical moment to be included in his painting to capture the characteristics of his subjects. Huang Zhou's paintings vividly depict people's life situation, attracting viewers to be involved in his artistic work.

Huang Zhou liked to paint the life of the ethnic minorities in northwest China: the Uygurs, the Kazaks and the Tibetans. There are very few contemporary Chinese painters who can so vividly portray the life of the minorities. Huang usually drew lines to form the body shape of his figures. Unlike the stylized lines in traditional Chinese paintings, Huang's lines are fluid and vigorous, revealing a relaxed and free painting style. The lines of the face and hands are decisive and hard, while those of other parts of the body are more complicated. These repeated lines form his unique painting style, making his paintings appear to be rich and harmonious in content. His paintings increase the expressive functions of the lines. In applying color, Huang used single bright colors together with inks to form a strong visual effect, a technique which displays both traditional and modern Chinese painting ideas.

Huang Zhou was born in a farmer's family in Hebei Province. He was interested in painting in his childhood. His family moved to Xi'an when he was eight. He learned from the Chinese painter Zhao Wangyun in 1940, went to Dunhuang to sketch in 1945, and then in 1949, aged 24, he joined the Chinese Liberation Army. His artistic creativity reached a peak in the 1950s and 1960s. His painting Windstorm in Wastel and won the Golden Award in an International Youth Art Festival. Many other works, such as Singing Group, Spring Orchid and Soldiers on a Plateau, were also produced in this period. His second peak came in the 1970s, and his paintings of this period include Grassland Celebration, Feeding the Chicken, Wind and Snow Welcoming the Spring, and Missing Chairman Mao. Huang Zhou was also good at drawing animals, such as camels, pigs, chickens and ducks, but he mostly specialized in painting donkeys(Fig.2-50) and dogs.Huang was a dedicated artist; besides creating paintings, he helped to build the Academy of Traditional Chinese Paintings, the Chinese Arts And Crafts Museum and established the Yanhuang Art Gallery by himself.

 

 

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