Landscape, Guan Shanyue

Exhibition Label:
“The Boundaries of Heaven: Chinese Ink Painting in the Republican Period, 1911-1949,” Feb-2009, Kris Ercums
The effort to modernize traditional ink painting began in southern China during the early decades of the twentieth century, coalescing in what would eventually be known as the Lingnan School. Also known as the Southern School, this style flourished under the creative direction of its chief architect Gao Jianfu高劍父 (1879-1951). After studying oil painting in Japan at the turn of the twentieth century, Gao created works that merged Chinese ink painting with western techniques of light and linear perspective, often incorporating the colorful palette of Nihonga painters in Japan. Heavy atmospheric tones were employed to capture impressionistic observations of actual scenes. This was a departure from the idealized, often highly abstracted landscapes of late nineteenth century painting. It was in the 1930s, during the heyday of this school, that Guan began his career, eventually becoming one of the most important artists of the Lingnan School.

Archive Label 2003:
This major modern artist worked in the Lingnan tradition during his early career, taking the Japanese adaptation of Western art as his inspiration. By defining form with washes he created the effect of a misty atmosphere. The tilted foreground view and high mountains of the middle- and backgrounds are characterstics drawn from traditional Chinese painting.