Master's stroke

The late painter Lin Fengmian, who challenged convention, is honored with a display of his works in Beijing. Lin Qi reports.

In 1931, master painter Qi Baishi received an artwork from Lin Fengmian, a fellow artist and then-principal of the Hangzhou Fine Arts School (now the China Academy of Art) in the country's east. In the painting Roosters, Lin portrays three white-feathered birds with red crests in light strokes of ink.

Qi treasured the gift, and after his death it was donated with many other artworks he created to the Beijing Fine Arts Academy.