Only Chinese version is available
Twin bamboos
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Artist
Li Yanshan
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Year
Not dated (after 1957)
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Media
Hanging scroll, ink on paper
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Dimensions
116.2 x 50.8 cm
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Museum No.
CL2018.0237
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Artist Bio
Li Yanshan (1898 – 1961) was born into a prestigious family of Guangdong province. Greatly influenced by his father Li Zaiping, a lover of art and literature and his art teacher Pan He, Li developed a strong passion for Chinese painting. After secondary school, he was admitted to the Faculty of Law at Peking University. Returning to Guangdong in 1925, he attended Chinese painting seminars hosted by Pan He and other masters of the traditional school and was appointed headmaster of Guangzhou Municipal School of Fine Arts. As an artist, Li Yanshan would have far-reaching influence on the development of art in Guangdong and Hong Kong. At the onset of the Second Sino-Japanese War, he fled to Hong Kong. There he founded Feng Yan Studio in Wanchai with fellow artist Li Fenggong, training art students and creating their own paintings. For the next decade, Li Yanshan voyaged through Hong Kong, Macau and Xinhui, returning to Hong Kong in 1948 where he settled permanently in a stone bungalow in Ha Yuen Leng, Diamond Hill, Kowloon. From that time, most of his paintings were signed “dwelling in Kowloon hills.” This twin bamboo ink painting is from that epoch.
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Description
According to the bequeathed personal notes of Li Yanshan, he took great effort to replicate Book of Bamboo Paintings and Book of Ink Bamboo by Yuan master painter Li Kan who specialised in painting bamboo. Not only did Li Yanshan try to analyse the ancient master’s grasp and technique in portraying bamboo, he also modelled himself after Li Kan who found moral sustenance in painting bamboo. This painting has the natural realism and elegance seen in works of Yuan dynasty painters. The joints, branches and leaves of the bamboo are vigorous and upright; the shades of ink vary; wet and dry brushwork is expertly controlled. The fine and slender bamboo stalks display a noble resilience.
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—Chih Lo Lou Collection, Hong Kong Museum of Art
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