Best Collection of Fine Books by Fu Baoshi

Author: Fu Baoshi
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2004-08-01
Features: Fu Baoshi, originally named Changsheng, changed his name to Ruilin in the fourth grade of primary school. At the age of eighteen, he studied at the Jiangxi Provincial Second Normal School, where he began his artistic creation and research, and took the name "Baishi Studio Master Fu Baoshi." Born on October 5, 1904, in Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province, with ancestral roots in Zhangtang Village, Xinyu County, Fu Baoshi passed away on September 29, 1965, in his Nanjing residence due to a cerebral hemorrhage, at the age of sixty-two.
Fu Baoshi's father was an orphan who worked as a laborer in the countryside. Due to lung disease, he could not handle heavy labor and ended up in Nanchang, making a living by repairing umbrellas. His mother was an escaped child-bride. They had seven children, but life was difficult, and six of them died in infancy. Fu Baoshi was the only surviving seventh child. In his childhood, he tragically lost his father, becoming the second orphan in his family. He relied solely on his mother's work repairing umbrellas and doing laundry to support their struggling livelihood. At the age of seven, he entered a private school, and by the age of twelve, he attended the Ceramic Normal School. By the age of twenty-two, he had already written a major work titled An Overview of the Origins and Development of Chinese Painting. At twenty-three, after graduating from the art department of the normal school, he stayed to teach. By the age of twenty-six, he completed a monograph on art history, Outlines of the History of Chinese Painting Changes (published in 1931).
This outstanding young man finally had a breakthrough when he received praise and recommendation from Xu Beihong, and in 1932, he was granted a government scholarship to study in Japan. According to the account of Jin'gen Takashi, who accompanied him on his departure, Fu Baoshi had already admired Jin'gen Shogo, the great master of East Asian art research in Japan, and held him in high regard. He had written to seek advice and was warmly received. Fu Baoshi then enrolled in the Graduate School of Tokyo Imperial Art School, studying art and theory under Dr. Jin'gen Shogo. He also learned Japanese painting from professors such as Yamaguchi Yoichika and sculpture from Mr. Shimizu Takashi.
During his time in Japan, Fu Baoshi was exceptionally diligent and dedicated, far beyond the ordinary. In three years, he translated Wang Mojie by Umezawa Kazuo and Paintings of the Tang Dynasty by Jin'gen Shogo, and wrote Theories of Chinese Painting. In May 1935, he held a solo exhibition of calligraphy, painting, seal carving, and engraving in Tokyo. He left behind a collection of calligraphy and painting works, photographs, and books in Tokyo, which were donated by the Jin'gen family to the library of Musashino Art University after Jin'gen Shogo's death in 1958 (at the age of sixty-nine) and are now preserved there. However, the family letters he wrote from Japan were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.
Fu Baoshi was not only a leading painter of the twentieth century in China but also a world-renowned painter. In the history of Chinese painting, he was a genius artist who appeared only once every few hundred years.