Cicada and Bamboo, Zhao Shao’ang

Archive Label 2003 (version 1): Zhao won a gold medal in the International Exhibition in Brussels in 1923, when he was only nineteen. As his reputation spread in China and Europe, he founded his own school, the Lingnan Art Studio in Canton. After the Second World War, he joined a group of Chinese expatriot artists in Hong Kong. Known primarily for technically brilliant paintings of flowers, animals and insects in the bright colors characteristic of the Lingnan school, here Zhao has depended on the “colors of ink.” The cool elegance of the pale strokes that delineate the bamboo stalks contrast sharply with the energetic, splashy treatment of the cicada. The quickly rendered, dark forms of the insects, in turn, echo and balance the frenetic tempo and ink tone of the calligraphy. Thus a bamboo painting can be read on several levels at once: representational (of the nature if not the physical form of the plant), symbolic, personal, and abstract-expressive. Bamboo remained a favorite theme among literati painters in China and later in Japan. This fall four bamboo paintings from the Spencer Museum collection are on display in the gallery: hanging scrolls by the Chinese artists Liu Shangwen (active late 13th-early 14th), Pu Hua (1834-1911) and Zhao Shao'ang (b. 1904) and a handscroll by the Japanese artist Tani Buncho (1763-1840). Archive Label 2003 (version 2): In 1923, at the age of nineteen, Zhao won a gold medal in the International Exhibition in Brussels. His reputation spread in China and Europe, and he founded his own school, the Lingnan Art Studio, in Canton. Paintings of birds, flowers and insects are characteristic of Zhao's mature period. Though a hallmark of the Lingnan school is its use of bright Western watercolors, here the artist has depended primarily on the "colors on ink." Executed in lighter ink, the strokes for the bamboo stalks recall painting on glass in their smooth elegance. The energetic, splashy treatment of the cicada in dark ink echoes and balances the frenetic tempo and ink tone of the calligraphy.