Wang Huaiqing

executed in 1991

Private Asian Collection

Seattle, Seattle Art Museum, Wang Huaiqing - A Painter's Painter in Contemporary China, 18 November 2010 - 10 April 2011, pp. 134-135

This work is in very good condition.
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Wang Huaiqing’s classic in the 1990s

Rhyme - Ming Style Screen  understanding an ancient flourishing age

In the 20th century, Chinese art went through a stage of self-reflection and reform. It took on a broad range of external ideas, organizing and exploring its existing traditions. From the 1940s, the famous scholar Wang Shixiang started to study Chinese classical furniture. In 1985, he published An Appreciation of Ming-style Furniture which was looked up to as a benchmark in the academic world. At the same time, in the 1980s, Wang Huaiqing presented the elegance of Ming-style furniture through minimalism and semi-abstract techniques, making it a modern focus. In 1998, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York hosted the age-defining China 5000 Years Exhibition. There were only two oil paintings from the 1990s, and one of them was Night Revel- 1, a reflection of Wang Huaiqing's international recognition. Rhyme - Ming Style Screen （Lot 1013） was not only the earliest work in the series but has also been displayed at Wang's important personal exhibition Wang Huaiqing – Leaving the Hometown at the Seattle Art Museum in 2010. It marked the peak of his creation and passion.

Gazing at the nine-section screen: The pulsing tension of the painting

Rhyme - Ming Style Screen depicts a nine-section screen. Its subject is similar to Western still life paintings but is different from classicism or modernism, aiming at presenting the beauty of still subjects. The artist was eager to bring the screen to life, so he deliberately captured the key moment when seven sections of the screen opened and the last two sections were about to open. When you look at the painting, it is as if you are appreciating a landscape scroll painting unfolding slowing from right to left. This adds a feeling of suspense to the painting, as the audience unconsciously forms an expectation of the static screen. In ancient Chinese painting, screens were an indispensable part of narrative scenes. In Tang Yin’s (Ming Dynasty) imitation of the famous Night Revels of Han Xizai from the Five Dynasties period, he deliberately added a screen behind the main subject which was not in the original painting. It functioned like an item of a stage set, explaining the plot and development of time and space to highlight the personality of the character.

Rhyme - Ming Style Screen plays on dramatic classical furniture and was a harbinger of Wang Huaiqing’s Night Revel- 1, after deconstructing Night Revels of Han Xizai in 1996. The artist was inspired by ancient character painting and then overthrew it. Not only was the relationship between the character and the objects reversed, but the image of the character was also highly simplified and even disappeared. However, what did not change and even strengthened was the strong theatrical sense conveyed by the painting. Observers standing in front of the screen seem to be waiting for a performance to start, with different thoughts coming to their mind, creating their own associations about the painting. The moving of the screen in the painting triggers the movement of observers' thoughts, which echoes the theme of “rhyme”.

Hometown return: The texture of belonging

The concise language of Rhyme - Ming Style Screen, in fact comes out of Wang Huaiqing's life experience of "leaving the country" and "returning". Wang graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in the 1960s, following the official Soviet-style realism, but under the guidance of Wu Guanzhong, Wang recognized the importance of formal beauty and abstract beauty. In the 1980s, he went to the US as a visiting scholar. As well as learning about the essence of Western ancient and modern art, he also experienced a modern and contemporary creative essence, and gained a clearer understanding of the essence of Chinese culture. He therefore decided to understand and rediscover the beauty of his homeland. He began with simple, semi-abstract language, as well as convergence and low limit color creation. Rhyme - Ming Style Screen elevates the beauty of the workmanship of Ming style furniture to an abstract beauty. You can see subtle inspiration from abstract masters Mark Rothko and Franz Kline. The painting's dark dry ink lines have not lost the primitive power of the wood. It has a dotted background like an old wall which maintains a texture of calligraphy paper. The middle section of the screen seems light or empty, it is integrated with the wall behind, creating a mysterious sense of space. Even more abstract are the interlacing forceful scratches and the rectangular bluey-grey marks. Rather than calligraphy, the inspiration for the painting comes from the men of letters playing a zither in front of a screen in ancient paintings. Allthough the person is missing, the musical notes that once lingered remains in historical memory.

The great Ming Empire: the fortress of Chinese civilisation

Clearly, Wang Huaiqing carefully considered his choice of Ming furniture as a subject of his works after returning to China. The Ming Dynasty lasted for 276 years as the last Han-oriented dynasty in China. During the Ming, primitive capitalism emerged and a society of gentry flourished. The Wang Yangming School spread throughout East Asia. Zheng He made his voyage all the way to East Africa. Europe was about to enter its Renaissance period, and saw the Ming as a Utopia on earth, and it triggered great geographical discoveries later on. Ming furniture was a product of the age that was shared by officials and common people. It reflects traces of integration between China and foreign countries. When Rhyme - Ming Style Screen was created, mainland China was developing fast, and traditions were being replaced rapidly and on a large scale. It is as if the painter is echoing the words by Xin Qiji in the Southern Song Dynasty that "Performance stages and singing platforms as well as great men are always blown away by the wind and rain. The grasses and trees waver in the setting sun. People say this ordinary road is where Emperor Gaozu lived." It was once a battleground, embracing an expanse of glorious tradition. Although it became history in the tides of the age, it never lost its dignity and glory, waiting for the opportunity to rekindle its dazzling splendour.