Guan Shanyue was a representative painter in the process of the transformation of Chinese painting in the 20th century, adhering to the concept of "keeping up with the times with ink and brush", and leaving behind works reflecting the ideological and cultural connotations of the times in various periods. As one of the important subjects of Chinese painting, flower and bird painting has created many excellent works that meet the needs of the times in the social transformation and cultural changes since the 1950s. With its unique techniques of expressing emotions and conveying objects, as well as the characteristics of traditional ink and painting, it embodies the strong creativity of Chinese painting tradition.

The vibrant and lush scenes in Guan Shanyue's flower-and-bird paintings distinguish them from the sparse and elegant qualities of traditional literati paintings, thus expressing a new spirit of the times in modern Chinese painting. By combining his unique brushwork and ink language with Mao Zedong's poetic sentiment, Guan Shanyue created the widely known "Guan's Plum Blossom" while continuously exploring Chinese flower-and-bird painting throughout his artistic career. Almost in every historical period, he left behind works with distinctive themes. When we review his flower-and-bird paintings from his later years, we can discover that in his seemingly casual expressions of sentiment and descriptions of objects, they provide us with a reference to glimpse into his traditional humanistic sentiment as a painter who experienced the transformations of the 20th century and was deeply concerned with reality. This also offers us rare visual historical materials for exploring the poetic-painting mode, brushwork language, and modern transformation of traditional Chinese painting.

This exhibition aims to examine Guan Shanyue's flower-and-bird painting art under the context of the 20th-century transformations, revealing how new era concepts and traditional symbolic meanings in flower-and-bird paintings achieved their modern transformation, thus highlighting the contemporary significance and connotations of Guan Shanyue's flower-and-bird painting art.

Chen Xiangbo, Director of Guan Shanyue Art Museum
December 13, 2019