On The Sha Society For The Art Of Oil Painting

This paper mainly focuses on Sha Qi's oil painting. The art of his modest oil painting is astonishing. His artistic talent, grievous life experience, and pious pursuit of and persistent quest for art, all these combined build up his brilliant career of art. In general, the style of his painting can be divided into three phases: before 1949 is the early stage; the 1980s metaphase, and the 1990s the later stage. To be specific, the art of the early stage is classical, representative, and is inclined towards sketch. Although the art in the metaphase bears some resemblance with that of the early stage in several aspects, such as concrete image and lifelike description of the object, there are slight differences indicating a transition period from the early stage to the later one. The art of the later stage is of color, expressional, and exhibiting a strong sense of form, which is like the painter's murmuring to his inner self. Behind the stylistic changes during the three phases, exists immanent coherence: First, Sha Qi's expressional consciousness that gradually exerts apparent influence; second, the same structural and formal laws dominating over his paintings both in the early and later stages.Judging from the perspective of artistic creation, Sha Qi's painting does not result from pathological operation. The procedure of his artistic creation, characterized with stability and permanency, is in accordance with that of the general practice. On the other hand, from the angle of the work, Sha Qi's painting shows uniqueness in appearance and rich variety. What's more important is the interesting symbolic implication and formal features.Great congeniality of aesthetic elements can be found between Sha Qi's painting and folk arts: the quality of trueness , the characteristic of rusticity , and similar employment of symbolic devices, etc.. Still, Sha Qi's work bears striking resemblance with Van Gogh's work, such as expressional techniques, the quest for the harmonious picture, and the partiality to symbolic subject matter, etc.. The comparative study enables us to achieve an in-depth comprehension of the characteristics of Sha Qi's painting, maintain a relatively integral impression of his work, and give the artist and his oil painting a due place in the history of art.