Rongbaozhai Painting Spectrum (110)

Author: Jiang Hanting
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-03-25
Features: Jiang Hanting is renowned for painting birds. It can be said that no modern painter could replicate more than a hundred types of birds from memory. Yet, Jiang Teacher achieved this—he could name and describe the habits of every bird he painted, which was inseparable from his regular bird breeding and meticulous observation. He not only kept various birds at home but also built large iron cages in the painting academy to house many of them. Additionally, he loved photography and often carried a camera with him, capturing flowers and flying birds for his paintings. As a result, his depictions of domestic and wild birds were all vividly lifelike. Painter Zhang Dazhuang once marveled, "The birds in Hanting's brush are flying everywhere in the world." Teacher Jiang was truly a master of flower-and-bird painting, with at least ninety of his one hundred works featuring both birds and flowers. He sometimes jokingly said, "I have too many birds in my belly; they often clamor to fly out and end up landing on the paper." Teacher Jiang's paintings are characterized by clear brushwork, every stroke precise, and elegant colors that appeal to both the refined and the popular. Before the liberation, his paintings predominantly featured small-xieyi (freehand brushwork) techniques. Starting in the 1950s, his brushwork became broader, and especially from the 1960s, he adopted a simplified, light-color daoyi (grand freehand brushwork) style, which further matured and intensified his artistic style. He had planned to hold an exhibition of his new works for his sixtieth birthday, but unfortunately, just as he turned sixty, he passed away before the exhibition could take place.