The flowers he painted are like crabs, and the donkey's leg seems to be broken with only two ink spots, but Qi Baishi is amazed!
Among the masters of Chinese painting, Qi Baishi, Xu Beihong and others are household names. Although Qi Baishi's paintings were not popular before his death, his Twelve Screens of Landscape became a masterpiece, setting a record for the auction of Chinese paintings. Qi Baishi can be regarded as a master of Chinese painting, and people who can be praised by Qi Baishi are naturally not bad.
There was a man named Xu Wei, one of the three great talents in Ming Dynasty. Qi Baishi once admired his paintings. Wei Xu is not a professional painter. He has dabbled in poetry and drama, so he is versatile. Xu Wei was recorded in Historical Records. In Biography of Xu Wenchang, he once said that he was uninhibited. He still broke into the house in front of the majestic Hu Zongxian, wearing a shabby black headscarf and white clothes.
Xu Wei's love history is also recorded in A Brief Introduction to Love History. The man was so jealous that he later killed his wife. And Xu Wei's paintings, like his people, are uninhibited and puzzling. One of Xu Wei's representative works is called "Ink Grape Map", which is now in the Palace Museum. When we look at the grapes painted by Xu Wei, we can hardly see a bunch of grapes hanging on the branches. Although we can see that the grapes are full and full of imagination, if we don't know the name, I'm afraid the grapes drawn are more like cotton balls.
The grapes painted by Xu Wei are full of ink, and the leaves, branches and fruits are distinguished by shades, but it is hard to think that this grape is a grape. Grape is a sweet and sour fruit, especially when my mind is full of thoughts, I will feel drooling, but when I look at the grapes in Xu Wei, I can't give birth to such thoughts. Not only that, Xu Wei's ink flower picture itself is a flower, but it looks like a crab.
Look at the ink picture carefully. If you don't know the name of the work in advance, you may not be able to contact the flower even if you want to break your head. A large piece of ink made a flower, but you really can't see what it is, only bamboo leaves seem to be scattered sporadically. It is also because it looks like a bamboo leaf, and it looks more like a crab's leg in combination with the picture! In addition, there is Xu Wei's painting "Singing on the Donkey's Back", which is better than the first two, but the donkey's legs are also quite strange.
The main body of "The Donkey Rides Back to Yin Tu" is a man riding a donkey, which runs counter to the people in the painting. The figure and the donkey all left silhouettes. The characters are quite similar, but the donkey's leg is enlarged with only two ink spots, but it seems to be broken. If you only look at the enlarged picture, you will think it is calligraphy, right? In fact, the reason why Xu Wei's paintings are like this is because he uses splash-ink freehand brushwork. The paintings made by this method can be said to be the most abstract expression in Chinese painting. Therefore, although the painted donkey is not like a donkey, Qi Baishi is still full of praise after reading it, and even later generations call it a masterpiece.
Wan Qing's point of view: In fact, this concept is only because I know nothing about Chinese painting, which also tells us a truth. If I don't know anything about a field, I'd better not make a hasty judgment, or I'll probably sit back and watch. Xu Wei's painting is hand-held, because it is the representative of this expression. We look at nature in a conventional way, but if we understand it, we will feel some charm. what do you think?
References: Biography of Xu Wenchang and Brief Introduction to Love History.
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