Guan Liang 1900 - 1986
Guangdong.China
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Biography
Born in Guangdong Province in 1900, Guan Liang was the first generation Chinese Modern art pioneer. He studied Art in Tokyo from 1917 to 1922 where he was introduced to western oil painting technique. While receiving the basic realistic sketch training in school, he was also devoted in Impressionism and Post-impressionism art. Works by Monet, Renoir,Cézanne, Matisse had left him a deep impressionand the works by Van Gogh and Gauguin had become the model he worshiped and studied. From then onwards, Guan Liang was determined to pursue the vitality in art, art must surpass the beauty of stillness, art had to be rich in meaning.
Guan Liang's paintings can be classified into oil paintings, water color paintings, sketches, and Chinese ink paintings. The former incorporated diversified themes while the latter mainly based on Chinese opera characters. Guan's oil paintings were mostly painted freely unlike the works of artists in the same generation which seemed rigid and tedious. In landscape paintings, Guan was good at simplify the enormous space, complex color relationship and structure to bring about the landscape’s momentum. His figures were often small and crude, but with a high spirit that served to enlighten the landscape. The advent of Guan's Chinese ink opera figures paintings was a new page for the Chinese art history in the 20th century. His interest and cultivation in Chinese opera not only served as a motivation for his art creation, but was also the concept of his painting. For Guan Liang, those legendry figures were not the main subject of his painting, instead, what he depicted were the characters and scenes he had seen on stage. Guan had a special intimate relationship with Chinese opera. While he drew the performance of characters, he was also drawing his emotions and understandings of this particular scene, this particular episode. Just like Xu-Hong said: “His Chinese ink opera figures paintings attempted to transform the long-term fixed format of Chinese ink paintings. He synthesized the folklore interest with the lyricism of Chinese ink painting. He had thus used the rich stage performance format to expand the expression of Chinese ink, Guan had left the 20th century Chinese art a heritage of free and child-like water ink expression.”
Exhibitions
The Way Is Not Merely Between Two Points 2010 │ 12.18 - 01.30
Lin & Lin Gallery
Guan Liang–100 Years Retrospective Exhibition 2000 │ 04.19 - 05.14
Lin & Lin Gallery
The Exhibition of Lin Fengmian
& Guan Liang Works on Paper Collection
Lin & Lin Gallery
The Exhibition of Guan Liang's Oil Paintings1996 │ 03
Lin & Lin Galler
Publications
Derivations 2014
NT$ 1,200
The Way Is Not Merely Between Two Points2010
NT$ 1,200
Guan Liang: 100 years Retrospective2000
Non sale
Lin Fengmian & Guan Liang Works on Paper Collection1998
Non sale
The Teachers and Students' Exhibition of China Academy of Art1997
Non sale
Guan Liang1996
Non sale
民初西洋美術的開拓者1996
Non sale