The Less that I Am Known, the More Leisurely I Feel—Expressions from Figure Paintings by Qi Baishi: Part II
- show time：2019-08-30 to 2019-10-16
- Organizer：Palace Museum, National Art Museum of China, Tsinghua University Art Museum, CAFA Art Museum, Capital Museum, Tianjin Museum, Liaoning Provincial Museum, Zhejiang Provincial Museum, Hunan Provincial Museum, Memorial Hall of Qi Baishi in Xiangtan, Rongbaozhai, Beijing Fine Art Academy
- venue：Beijing Fine Art Academy
On August 30th, 2019, the special exhibition “The Less that I Am Known, the More Leisurely I Feel—Expressions from Figure Paintings by Qi Baishi: Part II” was officially unveiled at the Art Museum of Beijing Fine Art Academy.
“The Less that I Am Known, the More Leisurely I Feel” was quoted from a humorous quatrain by Qi Baishi: “Though my body is like rotten wood and my tongue is held, all the dusty feelings can be completely deleted. I laughed that this is really me, the less that I am known, the more leisurely I feel.” This was because that one of his apprentices painted a small portrait for him but his friends did not think it’s like him at all. Qi made a subtle response to dispel the ambiguity with his quatrain but we quoted it as the title of this exhibition for a thoughtful reason. Qi Baishi is respected as a great master of Chinese painting but he is always regarded as painter of flowers and birds and there is some research on his creative categories but exhibitions tend to be relatively weak. While we presented exhibitions on Qi Baishi’s landscape paintings last year and we present his figure paintings this year, both of which bring about “something new from the familiar. ”
“The Less that I Am Known, the More Leisurely I Feel—Expressions from Figure Paintings by Qi Baishi: Part II” is the most representative project during “The Year of Figures 2019” presented by Beijing Fine Art Academy, which is also the fourth exhibition within the second round of Qi Baishi Art Series since the opening of Art Museum of Beijing Fine Art Academy in 2005. The exhibition takes the evolution of Qi Baishi’s figure paintings as a clue, and is divided into three sections: “He Painted Portraits with Gifted Brushes (Early Works 1882—1917)”, “It Is always Difficult to Get Changes from Imitations (Medium Term Works 1918—1927)”, “Fortunately, He Retains Delicate Changes in Ink and Brush (Late Period Works 1928—1954)”. With wonderful original works by Qi Baishi, detailed documents and rarely seen “manuscripts”, the exhibition intends to restore the developing context and artistic characteristics of Qi Baishi’s grand freehand figure paintings.
For this exhibition, 198 selected figure paintings by Qi Baishi were gathered from 12 cultural institutions among the country. Through comparisons on the changes of his figure paintings through to the early, middle and late periods, as well as the similarities and differences among works on the same theme in the same period, the exhibition provides spectators with a more intuitive understanding and fresh feelings.
