Only Chinese version is available
Plantain trees
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Artist
Chao Shao-an
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Year
1962
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Media
5 panels, ink and colour on paper
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Dimensions
185 x 381 cm
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Museum No.
HM1994.108.1
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Artist Bio
Chao Shao-an (1905 – 1998), a native of Panyu, Guangdong province. He studied painting at the Gao Qifeng (1889 – 1933) Private College of Art. In 1930, he founded the Lingnan Art Studio in Guangzhou. In 1948, Chao settled in Hong Kong and re-established the Lingnan Art Studio to teach students. He excelled in painting landscapes, animals, flowers, insects and fish, and was particularly noted for painting cicadas. Chao is a representative painter of the second-generation artists of the Lingnan School. His works are widely exhibited in Hong Kong and overseas. He was awarded Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters from the University of Hong Kong (1994).
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Description
This five panels screen is a very appropriate format for the subject of this painting, since plantain trees are relatively large plants, which require sufficient space to describe. Such large format is rare even in traditional flower and bird paintings. The five connecting panels are painstaking in their compositions, and are made up of lively brushwork that is liberated yet cautiously studied. Such brilliant brushwork is particularly noticeable in the leaves, which Chao painted with rich ink tones down to details such as the broken edges and the broken stalks. The inscription contains the poetic lines “a night of wind and rain, the fresh vigorous leaves battered”, revealing a sense of desolation and melancholy. But it is precisely this melancholy that makes the painting so intriguing.
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—Collection of Hong Kong Heritage Museum, donated by Professor Chao Shao-an
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