Just Silence——The Grass and Insects World of Qi Baishi
- show time：2015-09-06 to 2016-06-30
- Organizer：National Art Museum of China, Liaoning Provincial Museum, Hunan Provincial Museum, CAFA Art Museum, Guangzhou Museum of Art, Rongbaozhai, Duoyunxuan, Long Museum in Shanghai and Beijing Fine Art Academy and other institutions
- venue：Beijing Fine Art Academy
In September 9, Qi Baishi art series exhibition“Just Silence——The Grass and Insects World of Qi Baish”will open in the Art Museum of Beijing Fine Art Academy. This exhibition gathers more than 200 paintings of Qi Baishi from National Art Museum of China, Liaoning Provincial Museum, Hunan Provincial Museum, CAFA Art Museum, Guangzhou Museum of Art, Rongbaozhai, Duoyunxuan, Long Museum in Shanghai and Beijing Fine Art Academy and other institutions. The exhibition provides audiences with an excellent opportunity to study the flower and insect paintings of Qi Baishi.
From “Live on in Degradation” to “Just Silence” exhibition, Art Museum of Beijing Fine Art Academy has established for 10 years.
In 2005, Art Museum of Beijing Fine Art Academy established, and the “草间偷活------The Grass and Insects World of Qi Baishi” is the first exhibition.In the ten years later, we held the exhibitions on the subjects of characters, landscape, plum blossoms, orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemum, aquatic animals, flowers, calligraphies, fruits, seal cutting, letters. In 2015, Beijing Fine Art Academy begins a new round series exhibition of Qi Baishi art, and collects works nation wide, tries to let audience appreciate Qi Baishi art comprehensively.The first subject of the new round thematic exhibition is still the grass and insects paintings of Qi Baishi, and use the name of a boutique album of Qi Baishi created in 1942——Just Silence to be the name of the exhibition. The art style of Qi Baishi’s grass and insects painting is unique. His fine brushworks of grass and insects are vivid, and very similar with the insects in real world; his freehand brushworks of grass and insects are painted by few strokes, but still very skillful and lifelike. Most importantly, he combined freehand flowers withrealistic insects perfectly, and not only developed Chinese fine brushwork painting and freehand brushwork painting to the extreme, but also in line with his aesthetic pursuit of Chinese painting should be created between like and not like the real world, so that it can be appreciated by both ordinary people and elite scholars. Fine brushwork of grass and insects plays the key role in the painting, activity and quiescence are united, and we seem to be able to hear the sound of insects. Qi Baishi poured so much sympathy and love in these tiny insects, so we are always moved when we appreciating these paintings. Qi Baishi’s feeling of insects not only came from his memory in his childhood, but also came from the meticulous observation, and this is the intrinsic factor made his painting be unique.
On the first floor of museum, we review the ten years’ experience of “Qi Baishi Painting Collected in Beijing Fine Art Academy Series Exhibition”, and choose several works in every theme to be exhibited in this part. Audiences can appreciate the unique art style of Qi Baishi’s paintings of landscapes, flowers and birds, characters, calligraphies, seals, poems and letters, and understand the curatorial ideas and academic achievements of Beijing Fine Art Academy during the ten years in the whole.
So far, the largest amount of Qi Baishi’sgrass and insectpaintingsare gathered together.
This exhibition is not limited to the category of the collections of Beijing Fine Art Academy, and cooperates with 8 important institutions who collect the works of Qi Baishi, tries to present the “grass and insect world of Qi Baishi” vividly. Largest amount of Qi Baishi’s grass and insect paintings are gathered together this time.The diversity, academic quality, and the amazing view of the works are unprecedented.The earliest Qi Baishi insect work is also exhibited in the exhibition, this work named Flower and Cricketcircular fan is Qi Baishi painted for the wife of his teacher Hu Qinyuan, and be collected in Liaoning Provincial Museum. The red flowers, green leaves and cricket are carefully arranged in the painting, the begonia was painted by boneless painting method, the cricket was painted by small freehand method, and shows the appearance of Qi Baishi's early insects painting. The Grass and Insect Album collected in Art Museum of China shows the characteristic of the grass and insect paintings of Qi Baishi after his Artistic Revolution in His Twilight Years, which called “Realistic Insects and Flower”.
Beijing Fine Art Academy cooperates with several important art institutes in this exhibition, tries to show the development of Qi Baishi's paintings of insects more completely, and let audience understand the artistic charm and value of Qi Baishi's insect paintings comprehensively.
Just silence, but silence is better than sound.
Qi Baishi always painted ordinary things in life, but gave different associations to each audience. Just Silence album is important collection of Long Museum in Shanghai, insects in the album were painted very vividly. Qi Baishi loved this album, and entitled it Just silence, meant his fine brushworks of grass and insects are vivid, and very similar with the insects in real world, but silent. In order to make up the “pity” of Qi Baishi, the exhibition plays the sound of wind, rain, birds and insects in the nature, and under the guidenceof Qi Baishi's perspective, tries to help audiences understand the experience of Qi Baishi’sobservation of grass and insects.
How to understand the insect world of Qi Baishi? We create the environment of spring, summer, autumn and winter seasons in the exhibition space, there also has the light shadows of butterfly and bee. We add Qi Baishi’s paintings and poems in the section of different seasons. Qi Baishi lived in Xiangtan of Hunan province in early years, and finally settled in Beijing. His art style of insect paintings also changed from fine brushwork to the combination of fine brushwork and freehand brushwork. In order to distinguish the characteristics of insect paintings in different periods, exhibition restores the old house of Qi Baishi in the apricot dock in Hunan Province, and the courtyard in Beijing with blue brick and red door, lets audiences sort out the development clue of Qi Baishi’s insect paintings, and get intoQi Baishi's life and creating environment at the same time.
Show the vast universe from the profound and subtle insects world.
“Try to reach a broad realm, and go deep into the fine details of the micro world” is a well-known saying of Zhong Yong. This kind of philosophy principle also can be reflected in Qi Baishi’s grass and insect art. He painted “Live on in Degradation” to express the perception of life in troubled times; he painted “Oil Lamp and Moth” to express the love of weak life. We can say that Qi Baishi’s grass and insectpaintings depicted the world in his heart, and even merged in his own feeling of life.
There are more than 30 kinds insects in this exhibition, butterfly, crickets, cicadas, mantis and so on. Every kind of the insects is full of energy, and Qi Baishi placed his feeling and affection on it. When audiences appreciating these insect works, they can communicate with Qi Baishi. Qi Baishi's insect paintings fill with his love of small creatures in nature, and reflect the love and wisdom of the elderly artist.
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