Qi Baishi

Traditional Ink Painting

Connect Artmaking and Observe the style of traditional Asain landscape painter Qi Baishi

Learning Intentions:

Learn about a famous Chinese painter who developed unique and whimsical calligraphic artworks, leading toward selecting subject matter for their own artmaking.
practice painting a variety of subject matter in the traditional style using ink.

Success Criteria:

Complete practice pages using ink to create some of the images found in the artwork of Qi Baishi

Qi Baishi,
1864-1957

Qi Baishi was a Chinese painter who was most known for his whimsical calligraphy & watercolour paintings.

Qi Baishi's Influences

He was influenced by the works of Bada Shanren, a Han Chinese ink wash calligrapher and painter living in the Qing Dynasty.

Bada Shanren clearly prioritised space for imagery in his calligraphic works, poetry or text taking up only a tiny portion of the overall compositions. There is also a bold use of negative space.

He was also influenced by the work of Ming dynasty artist Xu Wei.

Xu Wei's paintings differ from those above in that they utilise gestural marks, brush strokes that speak of fast motion, and ink pooling in splodges of water to create depth in floral imagery.

Qi Baishi's calligraphic artwork

The subjects of his paintings include almost everything, commonly animals, scenery, figures, vegetables, and so on. In his later years, many of his works depict mice, shrimps, or birds. Qi Baishi is particularly known for painting shrimps.

“Paintings must be something between likeness and unlikeness.” - Qi Baishi

Qi Baishi theorized that “paintings must be something between likeness and unlikeness.”

His prodigious output reflects a diversity of interests and experience, generally focusing on the smaller things of the world rather than the large landscape.

Shrimps, fish, crabs, frogs, insects, and peaches were his favorite subjects. Using heavy ink, bright colors, and vigorous strokes, he created works of a fresh and lively manner that expressed his love of nature and life.

Eagle on a Pine Tree, 1940

'近代齊白石松鷹圖軸'

Qi's inscription seems to question the bitter civil strife and foreign aggression in China in the thirties:

'Why attack ordinary birds,

Spraying blood and feathers on the ground?'

(Borrowing lines from Du Fu.)

Medium: Hanging scroll; ink on paper

Dimensions: 173 x 54.6 cm

"The great eagle is inspired by the 17th century individualist Badashanren. Qi relies less on individually inflected brush line than his model and more on strong design. Qi's genius in the use of positive and negative space and the meeting and parting of forms is evident both in the painting and in the beautifully carved seal that follows his inscription. Qi used a distinctive straight cutting style in his seal carving, seldom turning the knife. the resulting strong, rough line shares the aesthetic of calligraphic scripts carved in stone and clay. In this painting, the hand of the artist is as sure in creating the angularity and bold force of the pine branches as in the supple, evenly modulated strokes of the needles."

Lychee Fruit

1940

Praying Mantis on a branch

1950

The painter Qi Baishi has become the first Chinese artist to join the $100 million club.

A set of Qi’s ink-brush panels, Twelve Landscape Screens (1925), sold for $140.8 million (931.5 million yuan) on Sunday at Poly Beijing. It is the highest price ever paid for a work of Chinese art at auction.

Only 15 other works—by artists including Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, and Vincent Van Gogh—have sold at auction for more than $100 million (accounting for inflation), though a number of others have reportedly sold privately.

Chinese Ink Painting Techniques | Art Of The Brush

Artmaking Activity

Step into the shoes of artist Qi Baishi, using ink, brush and water, create some paintings of small creatures, plants, fruit. Paint in the style of Qi Baishi or other Chinese calligraphic painters.

The Artmaking Task includes a painting of imagery relevant to a chosen quote/saying. This is your chance to practice a range of subject matter prior to creating the final artwork.

In this lesson, you are to create 2-3 different ink paintings in your Visual Arts Diary.

You may copy a Qi Baishi painting, or something from Google Images, OR try to interpret a photograph you have taken in Chinese ink painting style.

Document your work in your digital Visual Arts Diary.