On the back of that postcard, Li painted a small, poetic watercoloured
landscape. That watercolour painting is widely believed to be the earliest,
mature piece of that art genre, created by a modern Chinese artist and available
to today's viewers.
As most of these artists were well-versed both in traditional Chinese art and
Western art, their works of watercolour may always amuse the viewers for their
strong poetic atmosphere and lingering aftertaste and an intimate resemblance
with traditional, coloured ink paintings in terms of visual effects and
composition.
This tendency is best illustrated by Li Tiefu's signature work
"Chrysanthemums in a Vase," which has for decades been widely recognized as one
of the best Chinese watercolour paintings ever created.
The artwork is used for the invitation card, the posters for this exhibition
and the cover picture for the newly published catalogue entitled "A Hundred
Years of Chinese Watercolours" by the People's Fine Arts Publishing House.
The ensuing May 4th Movements in 1919 helped bring about drastic rethinking
of traditional Chinese culture and Western ideas and techniques. Western art
genres were introduced to Chinese society on a massive scale, said Wang Chunli.
Watercolour entered its growing stage in China from 1911-49 and the most
famous artists of this period were Zhang Chongren (1907-98), Pan Sitong
(1904-81), and Situ Qiao (1902-58).
In the first few decades of the 20th century, watercolour gained a huge
popularity among Chinese people. In the 1920-30s, the so-called yuefenpai
(calendar) paintings, created by local artists on the basis of both Western
watercolour skills and Chinese gongbi or fine-brush painting, became a favourite
collectable among millions of Chinese households.
The yuefenpai paintings usually featured then popular singers and movie stars
or legendary beauties from Chinese literary classics.
Meanwhile, more and more Chinese youths were trained in the art of
watercolour with the establishment of a couple of art education bodies,
including Shanghai Art School (in 1912 by Liu Haisu), Peking Art School (in 1918
by Zhen Jin), the National Art College (in 1928 by Lin Fengmian), and the
founding of watercolour societies in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Guangzhou
from 1912-36.
During the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-45), many
Chinese watercolour artists, such as Li Jianchen (1900-2002) and Li Keran
(1907-89) expressed their rage on Japanese occupation of their native land and
the atrocities committed by invading Japanese troops.
Watercolour works at this time were created with Western techniques but also
a clear awareness of Chinese folk and ethnic art, pointed out Tao Shihu, an art
historian and watercolourist from Shandong Province.
For instance, master painters Situ Qiao travelled to Xinjiang, Ni Yide
visited Miao and Zhuang ethnic groups in Guangxi and Guizhou in the 1930s to
seek inspirations, Tao said.
From 1949-78, watercolour gained rapid growth in New China since the art
genre was favoured by both professionals and amateurs across the country,
explained Huang Tieshan, adding that teaching watercolour to Chinese primary
school pupils has no doubt played an important role in promoting the art.
However, during the catastrophic "cultural revolution" (1966-76), watercolour
was marginalized as it was considered not suitable for expressing political
ideologies, pointed out Huang.
The representative artists of this era include Wang
Weixing, Guan Weixin, Chen Juju, Zhang Kerang, and Huang Tieshan.
