Portraits of Chinese Masters

Coming soon

So spectacularly successful had been Japan's modernization in the Meiji period that the Japanese were convinced that they had found the solution to the problem of how to adapt Western culture to East Asia, and they saw themselves as leading the way for the other cultures. .......

Gao Jianfu began studying with a prominent local artist, Ju Lian, in Keshan, Guangdong at the age of fourteen. He learned under his master's tutelage to paint flowers, plants, and insects in a subtle and highly naturalistic manner. Immediately before he executed this set of paintings Gao Jianfu began what was to become an important period of experimentation. These scrolls, then, with the delicate beauty of their vegetal subjects, sum up his early career. In particular, they retain the mogu, or boneless, techniques of Ju Lian, especially his methods of applying water and powdered pigment directly to the painting surface.

Chen Shu-Ren, whose original name was Shao, alias Nianhua-weixiaozi, Dean-laoren and Ershan-shanqiao, was born at Mingjing Village of Panyu District in the Guangdong Province. At the age of seventeen, he studied painting under Ju Lian, the great flower painter of Guangdong. Later he went to Japan twice for further study. In 1906 he entered the Kyoto Art Academy, and in 1913 he studied for the degree of the Bachelor of Arts at the Rikkyo University, Tokyo. Chen is well-known for his bird-and-flower, landscape and animal paintings. Though the influence of his teacher and the style of Nihonga can still be seen in some of his earlier works,

      Ven. Hiu Wan

Although the Lingnan School stresses renewal and creativity, its essential spirit does not reside in rejection of traditional methods and inspiration. Rather, we consider ourselves heirs of tradition and we strive, clearly, toward a catholicity which reassesses traditional techniques and values, and reorganizes them into new images expressive of new feelings and a new spirit. Therefore within a single painting we may have the vigor of the 'axe-cut modeling stroke' or fu-p'i ts'un used by the Northern School .

Guan Shanyue (1912, Yangjiang, Guangdong Province) graduated from Guangzhou Municipal Teachers Training College in 1933. His early work consisted of sketches made in Southwestern and Northwestern China as well the coastal provinces along the Eastern seaboard. During the war, he was engaged in anti-Japanese activities in Macao and Hong Kong. After 1949, he taught for many years, and became a prominent representative of the "Lingnan School". In 1959, he cooperated in work for the Great Hall of the People. In 1979, the painting reproduced as a poster below was also added to the Great Hall of the People.   

      The Lingnan Master Yang shan Shen

      Ink-Wash Master Au Ho-Nien

Yang Shan-hen is one of the most representative artists of the second generation of the Lingnan School of Painting. Specialized in bird and flower, figure, landscape painting and excelled in calligraphy, he is open-minded to adopt the strength of archaic and modern, the Eastern and Western painting techniques. His paintings are therefore considered not entirely conformed to the original direction of the School. He establishes his own style by the application of dry textural strokes.

A painter with the bearing of a master, one can almost hear birdsong sounding through the mountains/ As he rises aloft to the Milky Way, he looks back on the innumerable peaks below . . . (Chao Shao-Ang)

Thirty years ago Au Ho-nine master Chao Shao-Ang, whose paintings of flora and fauna had raised the Lingnan school of painting to new heights of achievement, penned this verse in praise of his brilliant disciple. At that time, Au had just settled in Taiwan at the invitation of Chang Chi-yun, the founder of Chinese Culture University

      The Japanese Master HASHIMOTO

    The Japanese Master Seiho TAKEUCHI

Born in Kobe in 1883. In his childhood, he studied sinology and basic classes at the Shijo school. He then joined Chikujokai, a private school led by Seiho TAKEUCHI, during which time he actively participated in the Kanten exhibition. He later withdrew from Chikujokai because of differences in opinion. He visited China often and produced paintings inspired by Chinese scenery and Chinese classical literature ?

When speaking of modern Japanese-style painting, the names Taikan YOKOYAMA and Seiho TAKEUCHI always arise. These two painters introduced European painting styles into traditional Japanese painting and harmonized them. Seiho was born in Kyoto in 1864. As a child, he loved to draw and wanted to become a painter. He developed his own style by adopting techniques from Western painting and blending them with the traditional styles of the Maruyama-Shijo school ?

   The Japanese master Shoen UEMURA

This is a book about art, but not just about art. The subject is an art movement with specific regional origins that achieved national significance in the context of the political and cultural revolutions of early twentieth-century China. It is about a group of painters who attempted to produce a new national art that would be modern and still distinctively Chinese. It is about the interplay between art and politics in a period of cultural crisis and social change ?

Born in Kyoto in 1875. Winning many prizes early in her career, she was already known as an up-and-coming female painter in the 1880s. She submitted works to the Bunten exhibition from the first such exhibition in 1907. Her work consisted primarily of scenes of Kyoto, and she was inspired by classical Japanese literature. After her mother died in 1934, she began to use simple lines and clear colors to portray women with an inner depth. In 1948, she was the first woman painter to be awarded the Order of Cultural Merit.

      The Art of James Tan

     Exhibition - James Tan 36 Solo Show

In his years of study with established masters of the Lingnan school and more than fifteen more years of teaching other aspiring artists, James Tan has now emerged as a leader of the next generation of Lingnan brush painting masters.  James Tan's contemporary work retains the same exquisite quality that has made his name synonymous with creativity and true excellence throughout South East Asia and North American .........

Exhibition of Chinese brush painting by James Tan

In Search of Inspiration

15th - 23rd March 2003

At UBC Asian Center Vancouver

      Web site

www.jamestan.com >>  

Chinese & English, Web Site for The Art of James Tan.

www.jamestan.org >>  

English, Web Site for The Art of James Tan.

www.jamestan.net  >>

English,  Web Site for James Tan Gallery