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Chinese Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

A catalogue of the Ashmolean collection of Chinese paintings by Shelagh Vainker (published Oxford, 2000).

Chinese Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford by Shelagh Vainker

Publications online: 222 objects

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Landscape with mountains and trees

  • Literature notes

    Fu Baoshi was born in Nanchang, Jiangxi province. From 1933 to 1935 he studied in Tokyo at the Imperial Art Academy, and on his return taught at the Central University in Nanjing where he was professor from 1935 to 1952; during the Sino-Japanese War he moved with the University to Chongqing (Chungking) in Sichuan and in 1946 he returned to Nanjing where he spent the rest of his life. He sat on artists' committees at both national and local levels and in 1959 collaborated with Guan Shanyue (q.v.) on the huge painting 'This land with so much beauty aglow' in the Great Hall of the People at Tiananmen Square, Beijing. Fu wrote widely on the history of painting and in the 1930s developed his own style, to which he remained true throughout his career; he was deeply influenced by the Qing indiviualist painter Shi Tao, of whom he wrote a biography. Together with Huang Binhong (q.v.) he is regarded as the greatest literati painter of the twentieth century. See also Cat.No.31.
  • Description

    In this painting Fu Baoshi has used the classical landscape medium of ink combined with pale blue and buff colours. The repetition of slightly conical forms appears in several of his landscapes of the 1940s and early 1950s, and perhaps derives from the work of the early Qing dynasty individualist painter Shi Tao, whose work was a source of inspiration to Fu and whose influence is clear in some of his earlier paintings. The figures in this painting, like many in Fu’s denser landscape compositions, are small but centrally placed. The inscription states that the landscape was painted in Sichuan province.

    In 1943 when this landscape was painted Fu Baoshi was living in Chongqing in Sichuan province, as the National Central University where he worked had moved there from the capital Nanjing along with numerous other institutions to avoid the war with Japan. In that year he held exhibitions in Chongqing and in the provincial capital Chengdu. The exhibition of more than 100 paintings that took place in Chongqing the previous year had been his first for nearly ten years, as he had spent most of his time writing. In 1934 he had a brief exhibition of nearly 200 works in Tokyo, where he was studying at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts. A leading figure in that institution at the time was Yokoyama Taikan (1868-1958), whom Fu came to know quite well and one of whose paintings is exhibited in the ‘Japan from 1850’ gallery.

  • Details

    Associated place
    Asia China (place of creation)
    AsiaChinaSichuan province Chongqing (probable place of creation)
    AsiaChina Sichuan province (probable subject)
    Date
    September - October 1943
    Artist/maker
    Fu Baoshi (1904 - 1965) (artist)
    Associated people
    Yu Shenggai (active c. 1943) (recipient)
    Material and technique
    ink and colour on paper
    Dimensions
    mount 200 x 77 cm approx. (height x width)
    painting 109.8 x 61.5 cm (height x width)
    Material index
    Technique index
    Object type index
    No. of items
    1
    Credit line
    Purchased, 1962.
    Accession no.
    EA1962.222
  • Further reading

    Vainker, Shelagh, Chinese Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2000), no. 22 on p. 43, illus. p. 43 fig. 22

Past Exhibition

see (1)

Location

    • currently in research collection

Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.

 

Publications online

  • Chinese Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford by Shelagh Vainker

    Chinese Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

    Fu Baoshi was born in Nanchang, Jiangxi province. From 1933 to 1935 he studied in Tokyo at the Imperial Art Academy, and on his return taught at the Central University in Nanjing where he was professor from 1935 to 1952; during the Sino-Japanese War he moved with the University to Chongqing (Chungking) in Sichuan and in 1946 he returned to Nanjing where he spent the rest of his life. He sat on artists' committees at both national and local levels and in 1959 collaborated with Guan Shanyue (q.v.) on the huge painting 'This land with so much beauty aglow' in the Great Hall of the People at Tiananmen Square, Beijing. Fu wrote widely on the history of painting and in the 1930s developed his own style, to which he remained true throughout his career; he was deeply influenced by the Qing indiviualist painter Shi Tao, of whom he wrote a biography. Together with Huang Binhong (q.v.) he is regarded as the greatest literati painter of the twentieth century. See also Cat.No.31.
  • Chinese Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford by Shelagh Vainker

    Chinese Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

    Fu Baoshi was born in Nanchang, Jiangxi province. From 1933 to 1935 he studied in Tokyo at the Imperial Art Academy, and on his return taught at the Central University in Nanjing where he was professor from 1935 to 1952; during the Sino-Japanese War he moved with the University to Chongqing (Chungking) in Sichuan and in 1946 he returned to Nanjing where he spent the rest of his life. He sat on artists' committees at both national and local levels and in 1959 collaborated with Guan Shanyue (q.v.) on the huge painting 'This land with so much beauty aglow' in the Great Hall of the People at Tiananmen Square, Beijing. Fu wrote widely on the history of painting and in the 1930s developed his own style, to which he remained true throughout his career; he was deeply influenced by the Qing indiviualist painter Shi Tao, of whom he wrote a biography. Together with Huang Binhong (q.v.) he is regarded as the greatest literati painter of the twentieth century. See also Cat.No.31.
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