Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Ashmolean − Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

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Chrysanthemum and bee

  • Description

    Chrysanthemum exists in various colours including red, yet Chinese paintings rarely depict it in any colour other than yellow. Qi Baishi (1863-1957) is among the few Chinese artists who depicted these flowers in bright and bold colours. Qi Baishi is one of the most renowned artists of 20th century China. A native of Xiangtan, Hunan province, he was apprentice to a carpenter in his early years and later became a professional painter. He finally settled in Beijing in 1920 and developed his mature, vigorous style. Qi is famous for paintings of plants featuring strong contrasts between ink and colour, and for simplicity in plants and delicacy in insects, as demonstrated in this large fan painting.

  • Details

    Associated place
    Asia China (place of creation)
    Date
    1863 - 1957
    Artist/maker
    Qi Baishi (1864 - 1957) (artist)
    Material and technique
    ink and colour on paper
    Dimensions
    55.8 cm (height)
    Material index
    Technique index
    Object type index
    No. of items
    1
    Credit line
    Presented by Sir Humphrey Prideaux-Brune, 1949.
    Accession no.
    EAX.564
  • Further reading

    Vainker, Shelagh, Chinese Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2000), no. 106 on p. 124, illus. p. 124 fig. 106

    Tregear, Mary, Chinese Art, World of Art Library (London: Thames and Hudson, 1980), fig. 158, p. 196

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

    Qi Baishi was born into a poor agricultural family in Xiangtan, Hunan province, but spent most of his life in Beijing as one of the most illustrious painters of modern times. As a teenager he was apprenticed to a carpenter and in his twenties began studying seal carving and painting. He travelled widely within China and in 1912, at the age of fifty-five, he settled in Peking. With the encouragement of Chen Hengke (q.v.) he became extremely successful as both a painter and a seal-carver, eventually establishing a large household, many members of which were engaged in painting. His work introduced new subject matter - he is particularly known for paintings of crabs and shrimp, for example - and is admired for its directness and simplicity. At the age of sixty he knocked two years from his age for auspicious reasons, complicating the dating of his later works.

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