Beyond the Record Price Tag: The Stories of 3 Modern Chinese Artists (Pt. 4) | Tea with Erping

Welcome to Tea with Erping. I'm so glad to have our friend Lin join today's episode to talk about art in modern China. Hello everyone, excited to be here. Lin is interested in Chinese culture and she has done quite a bit of research into Chinese art and history. Apparently, she grew up in England based on her British accent. In the last episode, we looked at some of the greatest artists from the Qing dynasty. Today, we arrive at the final chapter. We are about to cross the threshold into modern China. Many of China's most well-known artists were born or active around this time. And their works are now highly connected, though of course still no comparison to those rare classical pieces. Well, one of the most well-known artists is Qi Baishi inside China. Everyone knows about this artist. Lin, you might have heard of him, right? Right, I've seen lots of his shrimp paintings online and people joke that his shrimp paintings are more expensive than the real shrimps in the market. I even remember my parents told me about Qi Baishi when I was young. But for people watching today, maybe it's a new name for them. I think that's pretty much the case of people outside of China. His art has made huge waves internationally in the past 10 years or so. It changed the way people look at Chinese art. Do you know what happened? 2010, that was a big year for Qi Baishi. Of course, the person was long gone, but his art caught the attention of everyone in the art world. One of his works, called Eagle Standing on Pine Tree, set a new record for Chinese art sales. How much did it sell for? Well, only 65.4 million US dollars. But that's not all. In 2016, the values of his works came in third behind Zhang Daqian, another modern Chinese painter, and Picasso. Now, there's another interesting story involving these three that I must tell you later. In 2017, a set of his paintings, the 12 Landscape Screens, were auctioned for 141 million dollars in Beijing. He would have been over 60 years old when he painted them. So that's the highest amount paid for a Chinese work of art, and among the most expensive artworks in the world. So why is he so special? Well, people like his style because it's playful and usually quite bold. It's eye-catching. He wasn't afraid of using bright colors. I noticed that he made paintings about everyday things like small animals, fruits and vegetables, things people can instantly relate to. You know what Qi Baishi wrote for the inscription on one of his shrimp paintings? He says, I'm 78 now, and people say I only know how to paint shrimps. It's so wrong. It's said Qi actually preferred painting landscapes, and that his landscape painting skills were also impressive. He was equally skilled in figure painting, another major tradition in Chinese painting. Qi Baishi could really capture people's imagination with his brushwork that looks a lot like watercolor. I think there's a name for this style, right? Yeah, so it's called the Xie Yi Hua. It means that the artist focused on capturing the spirit in painting his subject instead of his form. People also called it impressionistic style. His style is all about freedom from painting theory and past traditions. Wow, so how did he become an artist? Well, back then, if you want to be a successful artist, you would need to have the fortune of being born into an educated or artistic family. Without it, it's really difficult to have access to proper education and cultural knowledge. And on top of that, of course, one needs to be highly talented. Well, that's why Qi Baishi's story is so interesting. He came from a humble background. He was born into a peasant family and didn't have much schooling. When he was 14 years old, he started to learn carpentry and later became interested in Chinese painting. I read that in the beginning, he was self-taught. So to find good teachers, he traveled all over China. Yes, he went on a huge five-year trip to learn about classical masters. He went all over China, such as Xi'an, Beijing, Guilin. He went even as far as Vietnam. It sounds like a great tour in the post-Renaissance era when it was popular for artists to spend time in Florence or Rome to study art. Yes, imagine doing that for five years. So Qi Baishi was able to study all the early masterpieces. By the time he settled down in Beijing, he was already in his 40s. Don't a lot of people think that his works look similar to those of Ba Dashan Ren? Yeah, he was greatly influenced by Ba Dashan Ren's paintings and Shi Tao's landscapes, both of whom lived 300 years earlier. But Qi Baishi's paintings are more freestyle, more abstract than Ba Dashan Ren's. So when he showed his new paintings in Beijing in the 1920s, it wasn't popular at all with the conservative art crowd. Have you heard of people calling Qi Baishi the Chinese Picasso? Or actually, was that Zhang Daqian? Actually, perhaps people don't know about this. But rumor says Qi Baishi had quite an influence upon Picasso. Qi's style is much more impressionistic, as he famously said that paintings must be something between likeness and unlikeness. Some critics say that Zhang Daqian's style is more refined and closer to the traditional literati style. So it just so turns out that the two artists have very different styles. Well, this brings me back to the interesting story I want to share. Zhang Daqian left China in the 1950s, traveling to many countries before settling down in Taiwan. You know, Beijing made lucrative offers to him to return to mainland China, but he turned them down. And it's said that Zhang Daqian actually met Picasso in Louvre in Paris, or in Spain, according to another story. Picasso allegedly told Zhang Daqian that he wouldn't dare to visit China because they already had Qi Baishi. And Picasso was so puzzled why Chinese artists would go to Paris to study art, even traditional Chinese paintings were so advanced in his view. But it was known that Picasso copied Qi Baishi's paintings, and he felt that Chinese painting But Qi Baishi is often quoted for saying, Instead of simply copying or imitating his style, he called for artists to develop their own styles. Have you heard of Li Keran? Li is another famous modern painter in the post-Qing Dynasty period. In fact, Li Keran studied for 10 years with Qi Baishi in Beijing. I have heard the name. Didn't he mainly paint landscapes? Li Keran once studied a Western oil painting, but chose to return to traditional Chinese painting and follow the literati style. He was well known for his later landscapes. He famously said, Painting is reading, not for looking. I read that during the Cultural Revolution, Li was severely criticized for his landscape paintings. I remember the Chinese authorities called him out, labeled his landscape paintings In English, it means Black Mountains, Black Water, as though he was intentionally doing a disservice to the supposedly colorful socialist state. Wait a minute, isn't using black ink and white paper the way how traditional landscape paintings were done? Well, they actually called him a black artist to denounce him. So Li had no choice but stop the painting for six years. After the Cultural Revolution, ironically, Li was named president of Beijing Fine Arts Academy. What? Li Keran must have been so confused. Suddenly he's the favorite? Well, things are unpredictable in an Orwellian society. In 1989, Li actually supported pro-democracy students on Tiananmen Square, and passed away later in the same year. I heard that these artworks are now really valuable. One of his works sold in 2012 for $45 million. Actually, Li Keran has more individual artworks sold for over $15 million than any other modern Chinese painter. I just can't believe that Li Keran had so many ups and downs as an artist. You know, in order to survive, artists had to make propaganda art to support the communist revolution. The authorities have always been interested in having old art forms to serve their political cause. Traditional Chinese art in many ways has changed quite a bit over the years. In the past, artists painted traditional subjects such as lofty scholars, monks, beauties, deities, and of course, landscapes. Since the communist revolution, these are replaced by workers, peasants, and Red Army soldiers. Well, I remember in the 1970s, the so-called peasant painting Nongminghua emerged. Peasants without any art background or training started to publish their drawings and paintings in praise of the socialist system. Chairman Mao wanted a new ideology. Anything traditional and truly Chinese was to be left behind. That's why, in the 1950s, many Chinese artists were sent to the Soviet black countries to learn what's called Socialist Realism, whatever that means. In my research, I found that during the Cultural Revolution, artists were turning Chairman Mao's quotes into painting. This way, artists wouldn't get into trouble with their paintings. Well, yes, Li Keran actually was such an example as he tried to stay in line with the Party by producing pro-socialism paintings. Wanshan Hongbian is an example. Yet, he still was not able to escape persecution. Some critics once mentioned Li was being bold in painting but was extremely cautious with expressing his true opinions. Speaking of Chinese painters, we can't talk about Qi Baishi without mentioning Zhang Datian. Though Zhang was 30-something years younger than Qi Baishi, isn't there that famous phrase in China, Zhang Datian in the South, Qi Baishi in the North? But I thought that Qi Baishi is actually from Hunan originally. So isn't that in the South? You're right, but Qi Baishi lived in Beijing for most of his later life after he became recognized as an artist. After 1949, the Communist government actually made him a poster boy for the so-called Peace Movement. And gave him the title of the People's Artist. In an odd way, Qi Baishi was lucky to have passed away in 1957. Do you know why? Because during the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards came up to tear up his home. His family members were forced to kneel outside while the Red Guards took the paintings, calligraphy, and seals. Apparently, no one knows what became of those arts. His family were all artists and they had to paint in secret and hide their artworks. According to my father, in the early 1950s, the Chinese authorities also took away some valuable possessions that belonged to my grandparents. And some of the stolen items were Qi Baishi's paintings and calligraphy. My grandparents served in the Nationalist government and knew Qi Baishi because they were all from Hunan province. But no one knows where those items are now. Liu Ping, I'm so sorry to hear that. But while we talk about Qi Baishi, do you know that Qi Baishi has a great family legacy? He had 12 kids and married three wives. That's a huge family by today's standards. But I heard actually that one of his granddaughters is missing. What happened to her? Well, his granddaughter Qi Bingshu was also an accomplished painter. It's reported that Qi Baishi considered her painting style most resembles his own. She is the daughter of Qi Baishi's fourth son. She suffered torture in labor camp because she practiced Falun Gong, a Buddhist meditation. She refused to give up her belief, so the police kidnapped her, threw her into a mental institution, gave her drugs that left her unable to paint. It destroyed her health. No one knows her whereabouts right now. It makes me think of what Victor Hugo said, Well, Confucius also said Throughout dynasties, Chinese people, including artists, have been breathing all risks to follow their own spirituality or to express themselves through different art forms. Sadly, this remains true in this day and age. I didn't know about these details before. I mean, these contemporary painters are world famous, their art sells for incredible amounts of money. But how many know the reality of what it was like to live without freedom? You know why we call the great painters of the past the grand masters? It's because they fought for freedom to achieve higher ideals in those times. So today, despite the high auction values and the glamour of the art world, we see that arts are moving further away from tradition. This appears to be true in music, literature, and other cultural forms. I remember that Leonardo da Vinci said, Knowledge of the past and of the places of the earth Well, by looking at the past culture and arts, we can better appreciate the human endeavor and sacrifice in the past, and understand why those artists sought harmony with nature. Looks like Leo knew what real freedom is. This is why we should cherish the freedom we have here in an open society, and support those who are fighting for it. With that in mind, perhaps now is a good time for a tea break. Thank you so much, Lin, for being here today. Until next time, peace and tea be with you.