“Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.” – G.K. Chesterton
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Hua Sanchuan gallery
Zhao Guojing and Wang Meifang gallery
Zhangwang gallery
Natsuki Sumaregi gallery
Hua Sanchuan gallery
Zhao Guojing and Wang Meifang gallery
Zhangwang gallery
Natsuki Sumaregi gallery
Many, many years ago, when I was still a kid, I went to a large book fair with my family. I was old enough to wander around on my own, and I stopped by a small book stall with no customer, probably because I couldn’t squeeze into the large popular ones. A pictorial caught my young eye, and the shopkeepers surrounded me eagerly like hawks circling a lost sheep. It wasn’t cheap, but they eventually persuaded me to buy it with most of my “pocket money”. This was probably one of my first “expensive” personal purchases. It was probably one of my best.
It was the “100 beauties pictorial” by Hua Sanchuan. I took it home amidst my family’s swallowed questions (they let me be because I’ve always been… of a strong will). I closed the door to my room, and the pictorial opened a world to me. Hua’s style was of the “gongbi” school – intricate, delicate. Yet the detailed lines did not confine the “air” of the painting. Each beauty he drew has a different personality and a lifetime of stories to tell. My young mind was mesmerized.
Somehow I recognized that these are true masterpieces. I studied every single painting, and copied elements into my own works. Yes, I copied, like a kid tracing alphabets of a writing book. This pictorial inspired me to start drawing “seriously”. And I strived to learn, painstakingly and lovingly, with no one to teach me except a pictorial, in baby steps with limited talent.
I gradually realized he is no obscure artist. Hua is sort of like Alphonse Mucha, whose paintings of lovely ladies you have surely seen somewhere. His paintings are so popular that they are “freely” used commercially everywhere in the Chinese world – on food containers, on craft kits, on household goods, on room dividers, on furniture… Every year, around the time of the Chinese mid-autumn festival, his paintings will appear on the gift boxes of mooncakes – an expensive festive delicacy.
And then I’d smile, for though I wasn’t gifted with high artistic talent, surely I was blessed with good taste. Over the years, I discovered other amazing artists, but that special pictorial was the very first to open my eyes.
So, to the storekeepers of that small book stall, thank you for persuading me, so that I did not miss a world of beauty.
Expression
It was the “100 beauties pictorial” by Hua Sanchuan. I took it home amidst my family’s swallowed questions (they let me be because I’ve always been… of a strong will). I closed the door to my room, and the pictorial opened a world to me. Hua’s style was of the “gongbi” school – intricate, delicate. Yet the detailed lines did not confine the “air” of the painting. Each beauty he drew has a different personality and a lifetime of stories to tell. My young mind was mesmerized.
Somehow I recognized that these are true masterpieces. I studied every single painting, and copied elements into my own works. Yes, I copied, like a kid tracing alphabets of a writing book. This pictorial inspired me to start drawing “seriously”. And I strived to learn, painstakingly and lovingly, with no one to teach me except a pictorial, in baby steps with limited talent.I gradually realized he is no obscure artist. Hua is sort of like Alphonse Mucha, whose paintings of lovely ladies you have surely seen somewhere. His paintings are so popular that they are “freely” used commercially everywhere in the Chinese world – on food containers, on craft kits, on household goods, on room dividers, on furniture… Every year, around the time of the Chinese mid-autumn festival, his paintings will appear on the gift boxes of mooncakes – an expensive festive delicacy.
And then I’d smile, for though I wasn’t gifted with high artistic talent, surely I was blessed with good taste. Over the years, I discovered other amazing artists, but that special pictorial was the very first to open my eyes. So, to the storekeepers of that small book stall, thank you for persuading me, so that I did not miss a world of beauty.
Expression
