Zhang
Daqian is undoubtedly a typical artist of China in the field of fine
arts in the twentieth century. Traveling around most part of China in
the first half of his life, Zhang Daqian went abroad when he was
middle-aged, without changing his own idea in painting under the
influence of various styles in Western art, though. He came to Taiwan in
his advanced age and lived there until death.
Not only
good at paintings of landscape, flowers, figures, and animals in gongbi
(the meticulous brushwork) and the style to express conceptions, he was
also an expert in calligraphy and seal cutting. Xu Beihong once praised
him as the “first most talented artist in recent five hundred
years.”
Vigorous
as he was, Zhang Daqian enjoyed great fame in the art world at his
thirties. In 1929, he was invited to be an acting council member for
national exhibitions of fine art, responsible for the review of the
exhibits coming to show. Not satisfied with his achievements, he
determinedly went to Dunhuang to explore Chinese painting history.
Staying there for two years and seven months, he copied over 270 mural
paintings, most of which are now preserved in The Sichuan Provincial
Museum. Sixty of his copies of frescoes are now exhibited as his
representative work today so that the public could view the charm of
Zhang Daqian and his work in those days.
Situated
in the west of Gansu province, the digging of caves centered on Mogao
Grottoes began in AD 396, and the frescoes in them vary in about 1,000
years. Specially working on frescoes, Zhang Daqian found out the essence
of painting in the dynasties of Bei Wei, Sui, and Tang, thus his style
of figure painting drastically changed. Returning to the ancients to
make innovations in his painting, he added glory to the fine arts
development in China.
In his art
life of almost 70 years, Zhang Daqian used a great number of seals, the
full collection of which is simply impossible. According to the albums
of seals published, his seals must be over three hundred. The seals
exhibited here are only some of those preserved in the Sichuan
Provincial Museum that have never been put to book form. It is even said
that Zhang had used about 3,000 seals all his life, the number of which
puts him in the first place among Chinese painters in the twentieth
century in using seals.
Apart from
his own effort in seal carving, he, more often than not, had his seals
cut by about 40 other seal cutters. Of them Fang Jiekan, Chen Julai, and
Dun Lifu cut most of his seals, and with them he had intimate relations.
Their relations could be illustrated with the fact that, even in his
late life, he would write to Fang Jiekan in the Chinese mainland from
Taiwan requiring seals cut. And, in return for this, he would send Fang
his paintings. The fine art of the three seal cutters is on show with
the number of about twenty seals.
The seal
cutting by Zhang Daqian can be traced back to 1918 when he was only
twenty, and the seals he cut were already of high quality. Later he cut
seals for his brothers and friends, further improving his technique. The
seals anonymous of the cutters, such as “Da Qian Ju Shi” (“Zhang
Daqian, a lay Buddhist” or “A lay Buddhist in the world”), “Shu
Ke” (“A Sichuan visitor”), and “Zhang Daqian,” look like the
works done by Zhang himself.
The seals
in this exhibition provide the public with the chance to view the fine
art of a few renowned seal cutters including Zhang Daqian, and, at the
same time, the connoisseurs with real artworks in future identification
of Zhang Daqian’s early paintings.
Zhang
Daqian, having traveled around most part of China, stayed several months
in Macau in 1949 before going and living abroad. It could be said that
Macau is the last stop he stayed in his motherland before going oversees
and returning to Taiwan in his advanced age. The Macau citizens who are
familiar with the history would cherish the experience.
The
Cultural Institute of the Macau Special Administrative Region (Macau
SAR) has made endeavors in fostering the growth of local culture. It is
now holding the exhibition of Zhang Daqian’s sixty excellent copies of
Dunhuang frescoes and forty seals, which were borrowed from the Sichuan
Provincial Museum, owing to his remarkable contributions to modern
Chinese art history and his special relations with Macau. Cooperated
with the Macau Museum of Art under the provisional bureau of the City
government, the exhibition is successfully launched in Macau and the
public could enjoy the fine works of art. Born in 1899 and died in 1983,
Zhang Daqian lived for eighty-five years, leaving a precious legacy of
art to the later generations. The Chinese history of painting will
certainly record his merit, particularly writing a chapter concerning
his Dunhuang exploration for the essence of traditional Chinese
painting.
