Appreciation of the works of Xia Gui, a landscape painter in the Southern Song Dynasty, and the pictures of Xia Gui's works in the Southern Song Dynasty.

Brief introduction of Xia GUI

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Appreciation of the works of Xia Gui, a landscape painter in the Southern Song Dynasty, and the pictures of Xia Gui's works in the Southern Song Dynasty.

Brief introduction of Xia GUI

Xia Gui (birth and death year unknown), whose real name is Yuyu, was born in Lin 'an (now Hangzhou, Zhejiang) and was a painter in the Southern Song Dynasty. One of the "Four Schools of Southern Song Dynasty". He painted figures in his early years and later became famous for his landscape paintings. At the same time as Ma Yuan, he was called "Ma Xia". Ningzong was in imperial academy at that time and was given a gold ribbon by the emperor.

His landscape painter Li Tang absorbed the strengths of Fan Kuan, Mi Fei and Mi Youren and formed his own style. Although he and Ma Yuan belong to the pungent ink school, he likes to use bald pen, and his writing style is heavier, so he is older.

Using ink is good at adjusting moisture, which can achieve a more dripping effect. In the method of drawing rocks, it is often used to brush and dye with light ink first, and then use thick ink when it is wet, resulting in a special effect of mud ink, which is called pulling nails out of mud.

Works handed down from ancient times include the Western Hills Clear Source Map, the West Lake Liuchuan Map, and the Tang Xue Hakka Dialect Map.

Style characteristics of Xiagui

Ma Yuan and Xia Gui, famous painters in the Southern Song Dynasty, painted "Cape Scenery". Corner landscape architecture is characterized by few subject images, concise and refined pictures, large blank space, and the method of "counting white as black", which effectively uses corners to echo each other, maintains a sense of balance on the diagonal, and has a strong contrast between reality and reality. When refining the scenery, it strives to be less vigorous and set off the artistic conception with less scenery, instead of directly "painting" the artistic conception with the scenery.

In composition, Xia Gui is better at cutting and beautifying natural scenery and painting "corner scenes". It is his new creation to make a long scroll painting with generalized pen and ink, realistic objects, ingenious structure and bold cutting.

From his twelve long scrolls (today, there are only four paragraphs: Writing geese in the distant mountains, Returning to the ferry in a smoky village, Quietly fishing flute, and Sleeping at Night), we can fully see his achievements. After writing this volume, the Ming people said: "The pen and ink are ancient, the ink color is bright and moist, the smoke is like rain, and the trees and stones are deep and bright."

He combined the painting skills of Li Tang, Fan Kuan and Mi Fei, using old brushwork and watertight ink. He is used to dragging his feet, and his painting style is roughly the same as that of Ma Yuan. He used to be a trusting hand in the pavilion on the balcony. With a wave of his hand, he was abrupt and strange, with high charm.

Xia Gui is good at ink, and he is good at chopping with bald pen water as a big axe. He is called "dragging his feet" and "dripping water is vigorous, and the ink is attacking people". In terms of subject matter, Xia Guiduo painted the Yangtze River, Qiantang River and other water towns in the south of the Yangtze River and the scenery of the West Lake, and also liked to paint snow scenes and stormy weather.

Xia Gui's brushwork is concise and far-reaching, which should conform to the pursuit of "simplicity and innocence" in literati painting. Dong Qichang founded the painting theory of "Southern and Northern Schools". To put it simply, he advocates "literati painting" and despises "painter painting". Advocate frankness and oppose realism; Pay attention to the interest of pen and ink, and despise painting skills.

In fact, these two schools are formed by different painting concepts. It is inevitable that Dong Qichang named them "Southern School" and "Northern School" because of their regional tendency. We can't dismiss Ma Xia as a "painter" just because it comes from the Academy of Painting.

Although there is a dispute between "painter's painting" and "scholar's painting" in history, they have always influenced each other and learned from each other. As a model of literati painting, Yuan Sijia obviously inherited the painting style of the Southern Song Dynasty painting school.

If Ma Yuan's description of fine figures and pavilions is still too gorgeous, then Xia Gui's extremely simple description should not contradict the core of Dong Qichang's painting theory-Zen's thought of "getting rid of reality and understanding nature".

Later generations called Xia Gui "Xia Banbian", but the map of Xishan Qingyuan was obviously a panoramic view, and the original map had no seal. Perhaps it is limited by the concept of "half the sky", so the vast scenery of the rivers and lakes was inscribed as "Xishan" by later generations.

Appreciation of Xia Gui's Works

First, "Flow in the Piano Picture"

When Xia Gui creates landscape paintings, he is good at expressing elegant and beautiful scenery with Jiao Mo's brushwork, laying out landscapes in a horizontal way similar to focus perspective, and using blank space in a large area to describe the ethereal nature of distant mountains and the other side in the blank very simply, forming a beautiful and elegant ethereal charm.

Playing the piano by the stream shows the shape of a noble person playing the piano under an ancient tree by the stream. The brushwork is vigorous and the ink is dripping, just like the sound of playing the piano.

Second, the Tang Xue Hakka Dialect Map.

This painting depicts the snow scene in the south of the Yangtze River with vigorous brushwork, chopping stones with a small axe and throwing straight lines, achieving a stiff and steep artistic effect, and the pen and ink are light and moist.

When Xia Gui painted tree trunks and leaves, he sketched freely with a pen, and his brushwork was lively. People and pavilions are not as neat and meticulous as Ma Yuan, but hand-painted. It can be seen that Xia Gui's pen is rigid and tends to be implicit, which is obvious in this work.

The whole painting is elegant in color, tortuous in composition and properly arranged in density and distance, which is the representative work of Xia Gui's landscape painting.

Third, the map of Yandong forest.

Xia Gui's paintings are good at bold cutting with generalized pen and ink, creating a unique ink and wash art style. This is a round fan, originally it was a ten thousand fan. Draw a smoky mountain on the upper left, misty and quiet. On the lower left are trees and rocks, and then there are two huts. There is a wooden bridge on the mountain stream, and one person bends down to guide the staff.

This painting has sharp rocks, concise trees and unique composition. It focuses the painted object on the lower left of the picture, which is also the embodiment of "Xia Banbian".

After reading the above introduction, do you know more about Xia Gui? For more famous historical figures in China, please pay attention to China's history column and historical figures.