Peeping Into Chen Hong-Shou's Style

With a rich family education background, Chen Hong-Shou demonstrated extraordinary talent in arts in early childhood and developed a unique painting style which was different from contemporary artists of his time. Chen was highly creative as a master of the "learning from the painting object" concept. It is such prominent skills and his embrace of the culture and arts of all kinds that make his style unique from his contemporaries. Chen's painting style is closely related to how he "observes" and "draws" in his long period of development. He observes through the innocent eyes of a child, through the critical eyes of a young man, and through the refining eyes of a mature artist. It is an evolution of his outlook and values, which had direct influence on his painting style as "depiction of forms based on their association" and painting techniques as "lines across lines" in figure painting. "Depicting forms based on their association" focus on forms meanwhile "line across line" on lines. Chen's style puts more emphasis on the subjectivity and free nature of Chinese painting both in the forms and the lines. This is why Chen Hong-Shou earned a place in Chinese painting history and is also what modern Chinese painting lacks.