Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c11.s4.t3: Personalities

Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c11.s4.t3

Language: English

Personalities

Gu Kaizhi (about 346 - 407 CE) was a Chinese painter of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Styled ‘*Changkang*’, he came from Wuxi, Jinling. Born with noble blood, he served as staff officer and riding attendant in the army. He was versatile, good at poetry, calligraphy, and especially paintings. He was an expert in painting portraits, historical stories, Buddhism and Taoism subjects, flowers and birds, and landscapes. He once painted the Buddhist mural ‘*Vimalakīrti*’ at Waguan Temple in Jiankang (now Nanjing). This portrait of ‘*Vimalakīiti*’ is described as “the eyes tend to see, eyebrows seem to suddenly raise, the mouth is not talking but seems to speak, and the temples are not moving but suspected to be moving,” in ‘*Tablet Inscription of Vimalakīiti Portrait in Waguan Temple*’, and presents “clear and weak complexion showing disease, hiding the words that are almost forgotten,” (‘*Notes on Paintings of Various Dynasties*’), which is similar to the image of Wei and Jin Dynasties’ celebrities with “comely bones and clear-cut faces.” He emphasised on depicting the eyes of the figures in his paintings, and believed that “the beauty of the limbs is not related to the best of it, the vivid portrayal lies in this,” where “this” refers to the eyes, (‘*A New Account of the Tales of the World*’). The strokes in his paintings are well-planned, tight and with strength, like spinning silkworms, giving the maximum play of “remote ancient gossamer stroke.” He and Lu Tanwei, painter of the Southern Dynasty are commonly called by future generations as representatives of “compact-style” painting techniques. Legend has it that his representative painting works include, ‘*Admonitions Scroll*’ (Tang transcription), ‘*Painting of Nymph of the Luo River*’ (Song transcription), ‘*Wise and Benevolent Women*’ (Song transcription), etc. His writings include ‘*On Painting*’, ‘*Introduction of Famous Paintings of Wei and Jin Dynasties*’, ‘*Painting Yuntai Mountain*’, etc. He put forward the points of view such as “imagination change and perfect creation” and “the shape as spirit”, which have profound influence on the later Chinese paintings.

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A copy of Gu Kaizhi’s painting of the Luoshen by an unknown Ming Dynasty painter. It is now preserved at Liaoning Museum, China.

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(*Wang Yong*)

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Dai Kui

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Dai Kui (about 347 - 396 CE) Chinese celebrity in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, sculptor and painter. Styled ‘Andao’, he came from Zhixian, Qiaojun (present day Suxian, Anhui). He was very-learned and versatile, and lived in seclusion for the lifetime without officialdom. He once wrote ‘*On Clearing Doubts*’ to debate with the famous monk ‘*Huiyuan*’. ‘*Dai Kui*’ was good at painting, molding Buddha statues, and carefully listened to public opinions. “Dai Kui is adept in thinking and good at casting Buddha statues and sculpturing. He once made the wooden statue of ‘*Amitayus*’, 16 ft high, with

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'A Herd of Deer" painted by Dai Kui

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a bodhisattva. ‘*Kui*’ used his ancient and plain handicraft for worship. Without being tempted, he seated calmly behind the curtain, and secretly listened to the audience. He studied and researched in detail all the praise or blame that he heard. After contemplating for three years, the sculptured statue was completed.” (‘*Record of Paintings of Various Dynasties*’) “Dai Andao drew statues in great subtlety in his middle age. When Yu Daoji watched it, he said to Dai, “The god is too vulgar, as if he has unfinished worldly affairs.” Dai said, “Only ‘*Wuguang*’ will free your comments.” (‘*A New Account of the Tales of the World*’) Dai Kui listened attentively to the views of the Chinese public, and regardless of the blame of “the god is too vulgar,” transformed the ancient plain “western statue” into the exquisite and touching “Eastern Xia statue initiating the style of sinicisation and secularisation of Buddha statues. The sculpture of ‘*Five Generations Buddha*’, by Dai Kui in the Waguan Temple of Jiankang (now Nanjing), the mural ‘*Vimalakirti*’ by ‘*Gu Kaizhi*’, and the jade Buddha statue by the Lion Kingdom (now Sri Lanka) are together referred to as the “three ultimate”.

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Zhang Sengyou

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Zhang Sengyou (first half of 6ᵗʰ century) Chinese painter in Liang era of the Southern Dynasties. He came from Wuzhong (now Suzhou, Jiangsu). In the era of Tianjian of Emperor Wu of Liang (502 - 519 CE), he was an assistant minister in Wuling Kingdom, in charge of the painting matters in the palace and secret cabinet. Emperor Wu of Liang believed in Buddhism, and often asked him to draw murals to decorate the Buddhist temples. The figures he painted had strange shapes and bizarre appearances with different presentations, which indeed conveyed the best-of-its-kind. Zhang Sengyou founded ‘Zhang’s style’ of Buddha figures. He was also good at drawing portraits, flowers and birds, and beasts. Legend has it that the dragon he painted broke the wall and flew away once

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*The real diagram of the five stars, and the twenty-eight constellations*, painted by Zhang Sengyou.

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the eyes were painted. He used a calligraphy pen for painting based on ‘*Lady Wei’s The Picture with Ink Brush*’, and drew out concise lines abound in variations. He and Wu Tao-tzu, the painter in Tang Dynasty, are called the representatives of the “sparse style” painting techniques by future generations. Legend has it that in the third Datong year under the reign of Emperor Wu of Liang (537 CE), he used the concave and convex method introduced from India to draw murals at Yicheng Temple in Jiankang (now Nanjing), which presented a three-dimensional sense. According to ‘*Volume Seventeen of Records of Jiankang*’ by Xu Song, “Concave and convex flowers are painted all over the door of the Temple, therefore it is the personal painting of Zhang Sengyou. His flowers are painted with the skills inherited from Tianzhu (“Tianzhu” is the ancient name of India), formed with red, blue, and green. When looking from a distance, people will get dizzy by the concave and convex effect; and when seeing near, people can see they are flat. Everyone thinks it is marvelous. Thus, it is called Concave and Convex Temple.”

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(*Wang Yong*)

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Cao Zhongda

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Cao Zhongda (active in 2nd half of 6ᵗʰ century) Chinese painter in the Northern Qi Dynasty. He originally came from Cao State in the Western Regions (present day Samarkand area). He became a civil official in the era of Northern Qi. ‘*Cao Zhongda*’ was good in painting “foreign Buddha portraits”, and founded the “Cao’s Style” of Buddha figures. ‘*Guo Ruoxu*’ in the Northern Song Dynasty once commented on the two styles of ‘*Cao Zhongda*’ and *Wu Tao-tzu*, painter in Tang Dynasty, in ‘*Volume One - On Cao and Wu Styles of The Record of Illustration and Traditional Chinese Painting*’, - “The two styles of Cao and Wu are worshipped by scholars.” According to Zhang Yanyuan’s ‘*The Record of Famous Paintings of All Dynasties*’ in the Tang Dynasty, ‘*Cao Zhongda*’ in the Northern Qi Dynasty was originally from Country Cao, and was an expert in painting the figures of Buddha, which is called Cao’s style; Wu Tao-tzu in the Tang Dynasty presents Wu’s style. Wu’s strokes have a round and turning manner, while the clothes are floating up; *Cao’s* strokes are thick and overlapped, while the clothes are tight and

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Book cover of '*Tuhua jianwen zhi*'

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narrow. Thus, the successors describe them as “*Wu’s* belt is against the wind, *Cao’s* clothes are out of the water,” and indicate that “carving and sculpture originate from Cao and Wu.” The original paintings of Buddha figures of ‘*Cao Zhongda*’ are no longer here to be seen again. According to ‘*Guo Ruoxu’s*’ description, this “Cao’s Style” figure of Buddha was drawn in dense and overlapped lines, clothes close to the body, as if just coming out of the water. The Buddha portraits in “Cao’s clothes out of water” style is basically in line with the Mathura style of Buddha portraits in *Gupta, India*, with the modelling characteristics of thin clothes sticking to the body, which might be influenced by the latter.

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Wu Daozi

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Wu Daozi (about 686 - after 758 CE) was a Chinese painter in the Tang Dynasty. He came from Yangdi (present day Yuxian, Henan) and was born in a solitary and poor family. He started as a calligraphy student but did not succeed, and he changed to painting and won great fame. Emperor Xuan of Tang heard of his name and called him to the palace to paint. He was renamed as “Daoxuan”, was awarded the title of imperial tutor, and later was promoted to imperial mansion officer. He painted more than 300 murals the Buddhist temples, Taoist temples

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The mural painting in cave number 103 at the caves of the Thousand Buddhas, in Mogao, Gansu Province in China, depicting Vimalākṣa (Weimojie).

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and palaces in Chang’an (now Xi’an), Luoyang, and other places. Zhu Jingxuan of the Tang Dynasty commented in his ‘*Records of Famous Paintings in the Tang Dynasty*’, “All the figures, Buddha, ghosts, animals, landscape, palaces and temples, trees and grass that he painted are the top of the world, the first of the whole country.” Wu Daozi was especially good at painting the Buddhist and Taoist figures, and imitating Zhang Sengyou, painter of Liang of the Southern Dynasties, known as “successor of Zhang Sengyou”, and was called the representative person of the “sparse style” together with Zhang Sengyou. Wu Daozi founded the “Wu’s Style” of Buddhist and Taoist character patterns, with upright strokes, clear-cut and concise. The clothes lines are like orchid leaves or water shield branches, the shape is round while the clothes are floating up, with the feeling of “heavenly clothes flying, and the whole wall floating,” which is called “Wu’s belt against the wind.” The colour set is also innovative, often with dark ink depicting the lines, slightly shaded with light colour, which is known as “Wu’s dressing”, or “light crimson”. Dong You of the Northern Song Dynasty said in Volume Six of ‘*Postscript to Paintings of Guangchuan*’, “Wu’s paintings of figures are like sculptures, when watched from all sides, convey what is to be known from any angles. His strokes are rounded and thin like winding copper wires. The thinness and thickness of red powder shows the high and low of the bones, and the flesh shows up from the depressed place.” It seems that Wu Daozi was also familiar with the “like winding iron wires” iron line depicting of Yuchi Yisheng, Khotan painter of the Western Regions, and no stranger to the “like sculpture” concave-convex method of Indian technique. Xia Wenyan of the Yuan Dynasty said about Wu Daozi’s paintings in ‘*Appreciation of Paintings and Illustrations*’ that, “The characters have eight facets, lively and alive. The colouring, with slight shading in dark ink lines, naturally goes beyond plain cloth, which is called Wu’s dressing.” This colouring method of showing stereoscopic sensation is probably to a transformation of Indian technique. The ‘*Drawing of Birth of Sakya*’, which is said to be the work of Wu Daozi, might be the copy by the Song people, in which the modelling and clothes of the Buddhist figures are the clothes, hats, noble helmets of the Tang Dynasty, and Indian style is nowhere to be seen; the line drawing is not coloured, from which one cannot find any trace of Indian technique.

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The picture of Śākyaputra being born, and was also called, ‘Songzi tianwang tu’. It has been painted by brush on paper. Legend has it, that it was either painted by Tang Dynasty Wu Daozi or by Li Gonglin. The picture reflects distinct Chinese style, and depicts that Buddhism had already taken root inside Chinese culture.

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Yuchi Yiseng

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Yuchi Yiseng (7^th century CE) was a Chinese painter in Tang Dynasty. He came from Khotan of the Western Regions (present day Khotan, Xinjiang) and was born in a family of Khotan aristocracy. His father, Yuchi Bazhina is a painter of Khotan, who entered the central plains in the Sui Dynasty, and enjoyed great reputation in the Tang Dynasty, called by the people then as Yuchi, Senior. Yuchi Yiseng was recommended by Khotan in the early Zhenguan years of Emperor Taizong of Tang (619-627 CE) for his “wonderful ink paintings” to Chang’an (now Xi’an, Shaanxi), capital of the Tang Dynasty, assumed the post of an guardian officer, and inherited the position of Prefecture Duke, who was called Yuchi, Junior. He was good at drawing foreign ghosts and gods, portraits of Buddha and bodhisattva, with peculiar shapes and exotic faces in high and energetic spirits. He once painted murals in Ci’en Temple, Guangzhai Temple, and Feng’en Temple in Chang’an. He brought western painting style from Khotan, and “he used tight and strong strokes in small places, like winding iron wires, and he sprinkled ink with mettle in big places” (*The Record of Famous Paintings of All Dynasties*), “used colour cool-headed” (*Painting Appreciation*), and integrated the painting style of the central plains, playing the role of pioneering in transforming the style of the Western Regions into the style of the central plains, which was commented as following the ancestors, (Cao) ZhongDa changed the scene and transformed the foreign into Xia, renamed as Zhang Qinse, which started from him,” (*The Record of Famous Paintings of All Dynasties*). The original murals by Yuchi Yiseng are nowhere to be seen, but according to the information in painting history, such as he painted, “concave-convex flowers from the middle stretching the shape of thousand-armed and -eyed great compassion,” and “three transformed witches as if the bodies appearing out of the wall,” and other records, it can be seen that he had a certain understanding and application of the concave and convex method of Indian painting.

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(*Wang Yong*)

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Yang Huizhi

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Yang Huizhi (being active from 713 to 741 CE) was a Chinese sculptor in the Tang Dynasty. He once studied painting with the contemporary painter Wu Daozi, and together imitated the paintings of Zhang Sengyou, a painter in the Liang era of the Southern Dynasties. But he was not as famous as Wu Daozi, thus he firmly made an effort to specialise in sculpture. He also absorbed the spirit of Zhang Sengyou in the field of sculpture and thus Yang Huizhi’s sculpture can compete with Wu Daozi’s painting. People at that time said, “Wu Daozi’s painting and Yang Huizhi’s sculpture captured the magic strokes of Sengyou.” It is recorded that he molded many statues of Buddha, bodhisattva, Arhat, vaisravana, lay Buddhists, and painted girls in Chang’an (present day Xi’an), Luoyang and other places, and created in the sculpture the image of thousand-hand and thousand-eye Avalokitesvara. He also wrote a book - *Sculpture Skills*. All of these works have been lost.

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(*Wang Yong*)

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Zhang Yanyuan

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Zhang Yanyuan (about 815 - 907 CE) was a Chinese theorist on painting and calligraphy in the Tang Dynasty. He came from Yishi, PuZhou (present day Linyi, Shanxi) and was born in the Prime Minister family background; he achieved his highest officer rank Minister of Justice. He had a passion for painting and calligraphy collection and appreciation, and collected abundant works of these. He was the author of ‘*Compendium of Calligraphy*, *The Record of Famous Paintings of All Dynasties*’, etc. ‘*The Record of Famous Paintings of All Dynasties*’ was completed in the first year of Dazhong under the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (847 CE). It is the first comprehensive history of Chinese painting; in addition to the reviews on

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Chronicles of ‘*The Record of Famous Paintings of All Dynasties*’

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the painting history, it collected biographies of and comments on 372 painters from the Xuanyuan era to the Huichang years of the Tang Dynasty (841 - 846 CE), and materials on the appreciation and collection of the works. ‘*The Record of Famous Paintings of All Dynasties*’ involved Chinese painters and sculptors who were closely associated with the Indian Buddhist art, including Gu Kaizhi, Dai Kui, Zhang Sengyou, Cao Zhongda, Yuchi Yiseng, Wu Daozi, and Yang Huizhi, and among the foreign artists Indian artists Monk Jidiju, Monk Moro Bodhi, Monk Sanghabuddha (from Tianzhu), Monk Vajra Tripitaka (from the Lion Kingdom), and others, providing extremely precious information for the study of art exchange between India and China.

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Qi Baishi

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Qi Baishi (November 22, 1863 – September 16, 1957) Modern Chinese painter from Xiangtan, Hunan. He was a carpenter in his early life in his hometown. When he was 27-years-old, he got acquainted with some local men of letters, learned poems, calligraphy, painting, and seal cutting, and made a living by selling paintings and carving seals. From 1902-1909, he went left home five times to travel across the north and south. He

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Qi Baishi

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settled in Beijing after 1919, and on the advice of the scholar & painter Chen Shizeng, he began a decade of “reform in the old age,” during which time he emphasised on personality, simplified form, integrated the freehand brushwork of *Xu Wei, Eight Painters in Mountains, Shi Tao, Wu Changshuo* in traditional Chinese painting and the plain interest of folk art, and uniquely initiated the great freehand painting technique of red flowers and ink leaves. He was skilled in the painting of flowers, grass, birds, and insects, and was especially good at painting shrimps and crabs. His landscapes and figures with cut of strokes were peculiar with unconventional fun, and his poems, calligraphy, and seal cutting were unique. His painting position is that “the subtlety lies between similarity and dissimilarity; too similar will go to vulgar, and too dissimilar is a deception,” which has a profound influence on Chinese painting creation. His representative works include traditional Chinese paintings *Volume of Mountains, Group of Shrimps, Ten Miles of Croaking Out of the Mountain Spring, Peony, Ode to Peace* (co-authored), etc. In 1953, China’s Ministry of Culture

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*Chicks, painted by Qi Baishi*

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awarded him the honourary certificate of “People’s Artist”. In the same year, he was elected Chairman of the Chinese Artists Association. In 1956, he was awarded the 1955 International Peace Prize by the World Peace Council. In 1957, he acted as Honourary President of Beijing Fine Art Academy. Chinese painter Xu Beihong strongly favoured the artworks of Qi Baishi, and once hired him as Professor of Chinese painting. The Spanish painter Picasso, also appreciated the art of Qi Baishi, and copied his ink painting works. Although Qi Baishi never travelled abroad, the people of India were no strangers to his art. In 1924, the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore and painter Nandalal Bose visited him during their visit to China. In 1952, India painter M. F. Hussain also visited him during his visit to China. The School of Art of International University in Shantiniketan still owns the collection of Qi Baishi’s works.

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(*Wang Yong*)

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Xu Beihong

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Xu Beihong (徐悲鸿) (1895-1953) was one of the first modern Chinese artists, whose artistic works are quite vibrant and innovative, encapsulating the mood and spirit of the early 20^th century China. He is well-known for his Chinese ink paintings (shui-mo hua) of galloping horses and birds, and for creating monumental oil paintings with epic Chinese themes - a show of his high proficiency in an essential Western technique.

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Xu Beihong was born in Yi Xing county of Jiangsu province in July 1895, and died in Beijing in September 1953. His father was also an artist with whom Xu Beihong studied classic Chinese works and calligraphy at the early age of six, and Chinese painting when he was nine-years-old. In 1915, he moved to Shanghai, where he made a living out of commercial and private work, and then in 1917, travelled to Tokyo to study Arts. After a short duration in Japan, he returned to China in 1918 and began to teach at Peking University’s Arts School at the invitation of Cai Yuanpei (蔡元培). In the same year, he presented a paper, ‘*Methods to Reform Chinese painting*’, in which he urged the artists to preserve those traditional methods and amalgamate those elements of western painting with the Chinese ones. In 1919, Xu Beihong left for France for further studies of Art and Painting, while availing a government scholarship and also visited Germany to study under Arthur Kampf, President of the Berlin Academy of Art. His travels around Western Europe provided him the rare opportunity

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Rabindranath Tagore and Xu Beihong

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international aesthetics, in a bid to reinvent Chinese art. In fact, Xu’s influence extends beyond China in the early 20th century. Many pioneer Singapore artists such as Chen Wenxi, Lee Manfong and Chen Chong Swee looked up to him as a mentor and worthy peer, sharing Xu’s ideas to closely observe nature and inject realism into painting. His rigorous and stylish illustrations of horses were highly acclaimed by Chinese critics and connoisseurs, and this helped him gain an international reputation.

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In 1933, Xu organised an exhibition of modern Chinese painting in different cities of France, Germany, Belgium, Italy and the Soviet Union. During World War II, he travelled to Southeast Asia, holding exhibitions in Singapore and India. All the proceeds from these exhibitions were donated to Chinese people who were suffering as a result of the war, which reflected Xu Beihong’s deep concern for his people, and a profound sense of patriotism and nationalism. Xu Beihong visited Shantiniketan, the abode of the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore in 1940, and then met Mahatma Gandhi in Kolkata on February 17, the same year, where he sketched two portraits of the latter.

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After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Xu became the President of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, and Chairman of the Chinese Artists Association. He died of a heart stroke in 1953. After his death, his house in Beijing

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Xu Beihong

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to observe and successfully learn Western art technique. He came back to China in 1927, and from 1927-1929, worked in different capacities in many institutions of China, including a teaching assignment in the famous war-time National Central University (Nanjing University) of Nanjing.

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In February 1926, Xu held a large-scale one-man art exhibition in Shanghai that firmly established his fame as a modern Chinese artist of creative talent. He was best known for his history paintings, portraits, pictures of horses, cats and other animals, and he was competent both in western media and in the traditional Chinese ink-and-wash method. Although he proclaimed himself as a dedicated realist, a close investigation of his paintings reveal that they contain elevated heroism and didactic intentions, key characteristics of realism’s antithesis at that time, the French Neoclassicism. Xu Beihong was thus, a master of both oil and Chinese ink. In his efforts to create a new form of national art, he combined Chinese brush and ink techniques with Western perspective and methods of composition. He integrated firm and bold brush strokes with the precise delineation of form. As an art teacher, he advocated the subordination of technique to artistic conception and emphasised the importance of the artist’s experiences in life. Xu constantly pushed the boundaries of visual art with new techniques and has been converted into a Xu Beihong Museum in honour of his memory.

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On June 15, 1945, the Vice Chancellor of Peking University, Hu Shi along with the guests who had come to visit the Tagore Art Exhibition, took a group photo in front of the Zimintang. In the front row, 5th from the right is Xu Beihong, 6th from the right is Hu Shi, first from the left is Ji Xianlin, second from the left is Li Jinxi and 3rd from the left is Zhu Guangqian. In the 2nd row, 3rd from the left is Rao Yutai, 7th from the left is Zheng Tianting, 8th from the left is Feng Yulan and 9th from the left is Liao Jingwen. In the 3rd row, 5th from the left is Deng Guangming.

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Zhang Daqian

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Zhang Daqian (Chang Dai-Chien, May 5, 1899 - April 2, 1983) Modern Chinese painter from Neijiang, Sichuan. In 1917, he travelled to Japan to learn dyeing and weaving. From 1919 to 1937, he

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Zhang Daqian

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mainly stayed in Shanghai to get to know painting and calligraphy masters, copied ancient paintings of Ming and Qing Dynasties, and meanwhile painted landscapes, figures, flowers, and birds. In 1933, he took on the post of Professor of the Fine Arts Faculty at Central University. In 1936, Zhang Daqian was praised by Xu Beihong as “the first in five hundred years” for his artistic attainments. From 1940-1943 CE, he studied the Dunhuang Grottoes, and copied about 276 frescoes of various dynasties from the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes and Yulin Grottoes. In Chongqing in 1945, he copied Ye Qianyu’s *India’s Pushpanjali*. He stayed temporarily in Hong Kong in 1949. In February 1950, he was invited to hold the “Zhang Daqian Painting Exhibition” in New Delhi. In March-April the same year, he visited the Ajanta Caves in India, and copied Ajanta frescoes, of which he a made comparison to the Dunhuang frescoes. Then he visited India International University and the Buddhist holy land, Bodha Gaya. From May 1950 to August 1951, he stayed in Darjeeling, the Himalayan summer resort, painting and writing poems during which time he created a lot of works. Since 1952, he successively travelled to Argentina, Brazil, and San Francisco in the United States of America. In his later years, he initiated a style of splash-ink and splash-colour for flowers and landscape painting, which captured the attention of the art world. In 1978, he settled in Waishuangxi, Taipei, and built Maya Villa. His representative works include *Zhang Daqian’s Copy of Dunhuang Frescoes*, *Indian Ladies*, *Lotuses in Splashed Colors*, *Ten Thousand Miles of Yangtze River* and other Chinese paintings.

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(*Wang Yong*)

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Ye Qianyu

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Ye Qianyu (March 31, 1907 - May 8, 1995) Modern Chinese painter from Tonglu, Zhejiang. He self-studied painting. He started creating comics in Shanghai in 1927. His representative works include full-length comics *Mr. Wang* and so on. In 1939, he assumed the office of the chief-editor of the pictorial magazine *China Today* in Hong Kong. In 1943, he accessed India-China training camp in Ramgarh, India in the name of a war correspondent, and visited India International University and the Buddhist holy land, Bodh Gaya, where he drew plentiful sketches of Indian dancers and sceneries, and his creation focus turned from comics to Chinese paintings, especially of dancing characters. In 1944, he held a “Painting Exhibition of Indian Tour” in Chongqing, which received much praise from Xu Beihong, and Xu ordered two paintings of dancing characters from him. Zong Baihua commented, “Qianyu’s painting of Indian dance is the combination of classical beauty and modern beauty.” He taught at the National Beiping Art College in 1947. He became a professor of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1949, and served successively as the Academy’s Head of the Chinese Painting Faculty, Vice Chairman of Chinese Artists Association, etc. In 1962, his Chinese painting *India’s Bharata-natya* recreated from the sketch of the 1943-trip to India was his best representative work, matchless in the works of the same theme. In Chongqing in 1945, he learned traditional Chinese painting from Zhang

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A Dunhuang fresco of a Bodhisattva painted by Zhang Daqian.

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Ye Qianyu

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*A sketch by Ye Qianyu of Bharatanatyam dance form*

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Daqian, and Zhang Daqian also once copied Ye Qianyu’s *India’s Pushpanjali*. In 1981, he re-painted *India’s Pushpanjali* and had it sent to Zhang Daqian, who wrote a preface for it, which said, “Every time he paints the dancers in Shantiniketan, India, he depicted the singular gesture and elegant pose as if flying away.”

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(*Wang Yong*)

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M F Hussain

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M F Hussain (September 17, 1915 - June 9, 2011) modern Indian painter. He studied painting by himself. He began his career as a movie advertising painter in Mumbai in 1937. In 1941, he designed children’s toys and furniture. He joined the progressive artist group in the city in 1948. In 1950, he held his first personal exhibition in Mumbai. Over the next several decades, he successively held personal exhibitions in India, Europe, the United

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*M F Hussain*

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States of America and other Asian countries, and participated in a series of important international art exhibitions. In 1967, the documentary ‘*Through the Eyes of a Painter*’ that he produced won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. In 1971, Sao Paulo Biennial invited him and Pablo Picasso to hold exhibitions in a special room, as he was known as the “Indian Picasso”. In 1973, the Government of India granted him the Padma Bhushan and in 1991, it awarded him the Padma Vibhushan. Then, he was elected as member of New Delhi College of Arts. Hussain’s paintings take the main subjects of myths and legends that have been handed down by Indian farmers in rural areas, and modelled as plain, witty, and optimistic image of Indian farmers. Not only did he learn from the cubism and expressionism techniques of western modern art, but he absorbed the traditional Indian elements in sculptures, murals, miniatures, and folk art, and formed a Hindu eclectic style of expressionism. However, his artistic personality is rather distinctive, especially in that his vigorous and robust thick lines have become his unique Hussain-style means of modelling and art symbols. His representative works include oil paintings *Land*, *Between a Spider and a Light*, *Horse*, *Let History Come across the Impersonalized Me* and so on.

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In 1952, Hussain visited China for the first time, and met the painter Qi Baishi, who sent him a painting as a gift. In July 1984, Hussain visited China for the second time at the invitation of Chinese Artists Association, when he visited the painter Ye Qianyu and Xu Beihong’s Memorial Hall. At the dinner held in his honour at Hongbinlou Restaurant in Beijing held by Wu Zuoren, Chairman of Chinese Artists Association, Hussain said, “I have Chinese ancestry in my body. One of my ancestors is Chinese. In India there is an old saying, ‘To seek knowledge, you have to go to China. Both India and China are ancient civilisations with very long traditions of arts. Oriental art is nowhere subordinate to western art. The modern western art is obviously influenced by oriental art. I believe that in the near future, oriental art will be able to revive.” After returning home, Hussain held a personal exhibition on his trip to China in New Delhi and the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi attended the exhibition.

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*Portrait of Indian painter F N Souza*

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(*Wang Yong*)

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Abanindranath Tagore

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Abanindranath Tagore (1871-1951) as an artist of the early 20^th century India brought revolution in Indian painting with regard to the conventions governing the subject matters, while introducing other subjects of socio-cultural realities of the common people and those of the natural world into the realm of artistic creativity.

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Abanindranath Tagore was born in 1871 in Calcutta at the Tagore’s residence in Jarasanko, better known as ‘Thakur Badi’. Even as a child, he had an inclination for music and literature. However, he joined the Sanskrit College for Oriental Learning in 1881 and was there till 1889. Then for a few years, he took training in painting under the guidance of two European teachers from whom he learnt painting in oil, pastel, pen and ink, and watercolour. But, he did not like the rigid technique of European painting. Another Japanese art teacher who helped him in watercolour painting was Taikan who found excellent production skills and techniques in Abanindrnath Tagore by adding something new of his own to each and every piece of his work. That became his personal wash style, and for three decades he produced many paintings in that style and his disciples followed him. In 1905, he joined the Calcutta Art School as its Vice Principal when E. B. Havell was its Principal and served there in that post till 1915. But, he left the School in 1908 when Percy Brown became its Principal due to his differences with the new incumbent. Thereafter, he joined Calcutta University as Professor of Rani Bageswari Chair in 1921 at the invitation of Professor Ashutosh Mookherjee, the then Vice Chancellor of the University, and continued there till 1929. During this period, he wrote many articles on fine arts and delivered a series of lectures in Calcutta Art circles which were compiled and brought out as ‘Bageswari Lectures’. As a teacher he was very successful, for his teaching methods were unique and unconventional. He never wanted his students to follow him, and gave them maximum liberty in pursuing their innovative ideas and exploring own individual skill in their creative undertakings.

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*Watercolour painting of Xuanzang by Abanindranath Tagore*

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His Oriental Studies helped him to grasp and discover the treatise of paintings from Puranas, and explained them clearly with his own interpretations in an easy way with many examples. Many of his painting are full of pathos which shows his sympathy for the down-trodden and poverty-stricken section of the society. He was a versatile artist that is evident from his portraits, landscapes paintings, compositions and illustrations. He was a writer too who wrote for children and essays for adults; he edited some magazines with Stella Kramrisch. Another laurel was added to his illustrious career when he was appointed as the Acharya of Visva-Bharati, Shantiniketan in 1942 for five years, i.e., till 1947.

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In Abanindranath, we find a rare combination of a painter, writer, musician and critic. From this perspective, he proved to be one of the greatest artists of India who brought new dignity and status to the class of artists and painters who were traditionally being looked upon as mere craftsmen for using their hands rather than brains. Thus, he helped the artists of India to go beyond the status of a mere craftsman.

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On the whole, while giving an overall account of the famous artist, Abanindranath Tagore, it may be said that he was not only a famous artist, but also a great writer, art critic, thinker, patriot, scholar and a great teacher. He died in 1951 at the age of 80.

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(*Arttatrana Nayak*)

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Nandalal Bose

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Nandalal Bose (1882-1966) was one of the first few ranking creative artists of modern India, who had successfully demonstrated his ingenious skill and proficiency both in classical and folk art with an underlying spirit of spiritualism and symbolism.

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Nandalal Bose was born on December 3, 1882 in a middle-class Bengali family of Kharagpur, then in Bihar. After completing basic education in his hometown, he moved to Calcutta in 1897 at the age of 15 and entered Khudiram Bose’s Central Collegiate School where he did not fare well in the examinations. Thereafter, he joined the Commercial course of Presidency College under the pressure of his family members. But his interests and ambitions were elsewhere. While in Calcutta (present-day Kolkata), he used to spend most of his time in sketching his surroundings and copying the works of European masters like Raphael, while following the style of Raja Ravi Verma. He also tried to learn some basic skills in drawing and painting from his cousin, Atul Mitra. In view of such avid interests in painting shown by him, he was finally allowed by his family members to join the Calcutta Art School of E B Havell and Abanindranath Tagore in 1905, and he continued to pursue his artistic career there till 1910 under the erudite guidance and supervision of the latter. These years proved to be the most fruitful years for the young artist during which period two of his paintings, “Sati Mounting the Pyre” and “Satir Dehatyag”, received high public acclaim in the first exhibition of the Indian Society of Oriental Art held in the Art School of Kolkata in 1908.

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It is to be noted that Nandalal Bose had come under the influence of four different sets of ideologies and teachings of the four great personalities of his time, which had deep impressions on his philosophy of art and painting - Ramakrishna Paramhansa, Abanindranath Tagore - his guru, Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi. If Sri Ramakrishna provided a spiritual anchor to Nandalal, Mahatma Gandhi fed his nationalistic aspirations. Abanindranath attached value and substance to his passion for art and Rabindranath, the philosophical moorings of art. Rabindranath met Nandalal while the latter was doing his apprentice in Calcutta School of Art. Between 1909-1914, the artist and the poet Rabindranath met each other frequently and exchanged views.

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Nandalal Bose was basically a man of rural India. The open landscape of Kharagpur Haveli with its lake and picturesque hills were part of his childhood memories; the bullock carts on the move, the craftsman at work, open skies and tumultuous clouds were in his blood. All these probably constituted the crucial factors that led him to give up the lucrative assignments of Calcutta and decide to finally move to Rabindranath Tagore’s Asram in March 1920 for good at the latter’s invitation. In Rabindranath Tagore, he found an ally who gave him the freedom to develop as he wanted; to learn, to experiment and discover himself. Nandalal Bose had accompanied the poet in the latter’s visit to China in 1924.

Cites (2)

Vimalakīrtinirdeśasūtra — Sanskrit
Bodh Gayā