On Jiang Zhaohe's Compassionate Paintings

Jiang Zhaohe was a pioneering master of figure painting in the twentieth century. His paintings implicated deeply compassionate emotion, undoubtedly, becoming the masterpieces of his life. This dissertation is based on the study of Jiang Zhaohe's figure paintings, which he called" bitter tea", from 1936 to 1948. This essay uses" bitter tea" as a reference to di scuss J ang Zhaohe's art through four chapters.In the first chapter we will discuss three primary aspects that formed Jiang Zhaohe's figure paintings. These include the formation of his perspective, his maturity and the embodiment of his creativity.In the Second chapter we try to study Jiang Zhaohe's figure paintings from four aspects. The first is an expression of life's hardships, the unraveling of destined tragedy, mental anguish, and finally to represent a nation's suffering brought on by foreign aggression.Next and most important is the third chapter, which focuses on the analysis of artistic language found in Jiang Zhaohe's figure paintings These include the beauty of the ink and brush strokes, the subtlety of the mold, the intelligent composition and the profound i nscri ptions of the paintings.Finally, the inherent reflection of the traditional Chinese art ideal and language found in J ang Zhaohe's pai nti ngs are di scussed from three view poi nts. These being the humani st, traditionalist, poet, and real artist.After layers of analysis, we may conclude the "bitter tea" which ran through many of J ang Zhaohe's paintings was a reflection of hi s humani sti c concerns.It is an intelligent painter's exceptional adherence to the real world, creating for it an appropriate visual representation. Realistic moldings and traditional ink and brush combined to build touching imagery, containing a sense of reality. They are a revelation of the creator's true feelings interlinked to the objects of his creation.These masterpieces succeed in expanding the expressiveness of Chinese paintings in thanks to the sincere feelings of Jiang Zhaohe.