Calligraphy — Fine Chinese Modern and Contemporary Ink Paintings
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Qi Baishi was a Chinese painter, noted for the whimsical, often playful style of his works. Born to a peasant family from Xiangtan, Hunan, Qi taught himself to paint, sparked by the Manual of the Mustard Seed Garden. After he turned 40, he traveled, visiting various scenic spots in China. After 1917 he settled in Beijing. Some of Qi's major influences include the early Qing dynasty painter Bada Shanren (八大山人) and the Ming dynasty artist Xu Wei (徐渭).
The subjects of his paintings include almost everything, commonly animals, scenery, figures, toys, vegetables, and so on. He theorized that "paintings must be something between likeness and unlikeness, much like today's vulgarians, but not like to cheat popular people". In his later years, many of his works depict mice, shrimp or birds. He was also good at seal carving and called himself "the rich man of three hundred stone seals" (三百石印富翁). In 1953, he was elected president of the China Artists Association (中國美術家協會).
Xu Beihong (Chinese: 徐悲鴻; Wade–Giles: Hsü Pei-hung; 19 July 1895 – 26 September 1953), also known as Ju Péon, was a Chinese painter.
He was primarily known for his Chinese ink paintings of horses and birds and was one of the first Chinese artists to articulate the need for artistic expressions that reflected a modern China at the beginning of the 20th century. He was also regarded as one of the first to create monumental oil paintings with epic Chinese themes – a show of his high proficiency in an essential Western art technique. He was one of the four pioneers of Chinese modern art who earned the title of "The Four Great Academy Presidents".
