Feng Zikai's Ancient Poems and New Paintings

Author: Feng Zikai (Illustrations and Interpretations)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-12-01
Features: My father, Mr. Feng Zikai, divided his comic art creation into four periods: the period of writing ancient poetry verses, the period of depicting children, the period of depicting social scenes, and the period of depicting natural scenes. Among these, both the period of writing ancient poetry verses and the period of depicting natural scenes were landscape and figure paintings with ancient poetry as the theme. The former were sketched with just a few strokes and were uncolored; the latter were mostly created after the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War when my family fled to the southwestern regions, inspired by the landscapes along the way. These paintings were relatively complex. Initially, due to inadequate conditions, they were published in monochrome, and later were colored for exhibitions. The 100 landscape and figure paintings in this book are mostly selected from Mr. Feng Zikai's self-edited "Complete Collection of Zikai Comics," published in 1945. Therefore, Mr. Feng Zikai's landscape and figure paintings feature ancient poetry verses as titles but depict modern figures, all in his unique style. He called this style "New Paintings of Ancient Poetry." "New Paintings of Ancient Poetry" is an innovation of traditional landscape painting and a form of modern landscape painting. Modern people may not be familiar with the artistic connotations of ancient poetry. Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House specially invited Mr. Shi Liangzhao and Mr. Ding Ruming to provide interpretations for these New Paintings of Ancient Poetry and included the full original texts of the poems at the end, greatly enriching the collection.