Thursday, October 25, 2012

Chinese Plein-Air Scenes

In China, the how-to books on oil painting often feature bold, brushy paintings of everyday scenes. Here's a painting of an ordinary hair styling salon. Sorry, I don't know the name of the artist.

These appear to be painted from life, and they have a refreshing directness and simplicity. Judging from the historical books in the art bookshops, the approach is inspired by Fechin, Repin, Menzel, and Zorn.


By the way, the squatting guy above is working a popcorn cannon. Here's one in action (Thanks, SteveC):
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Thanks, Gary Geraths for the scans
Previously on GJ: Chinese Drawing
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5 comments:

  1. stevecOctober 25, 2012 at 11:52 AM

    If I am not mistaken that 2nd one shows a rice puffing cannon or maybe popcorn cannon. There are interesting videos of these on youtube.

    ReplyDelete
  2. stevecOctober 25, 2012 at 1:19 PM

    Here's one, for example:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta5jh9VglDw&feature=fvwrel

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousOctober 25, 2012 at 2:27 PM

    Cool popcorn cannon. I had no idea making popcorn could be even more fun than it already is. Imagine that on a Boy Scout camping trip..

    Nice plein-air scenes. I especially like the simple brushwork which, considering the strokes are all in the right places and in the right tones, maybe aren't as simple as they appear.

    Inspiring work, the Chinese drawings...really good stuff. - mp

    ReplyDelete
  4. J. R. GallegoOctober 25, 2012 at 5:27 PM

    Visit my blog James. Regards from Spain

    ReplyDelete
  5. sc0trOctober 25, 2012 at 7:53 PM

    It's funny that you would post on this today as I'm working on a paper about chinese painting styles throughout the 20th century. Below is a link showing the evolution of propaganda posters from the New Culture Movement in the 20's starting in ink and graphical styles and moving through the socialist realism in the 50's as Wang Yeqiu (1909-1987) embraced Repin and Surikov.

    http://chineseposters.net/gallery/index.php

    Anyway, just thought you might appreciate the posters.

    ReplyDelete

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